Erebus Motorsport team owner Betty Klimenko and CEO Barry Ryan would not be drawn into details when asked about the rift between the 2023 Supercars championship-winning team and their star driver Brodie Kostecki.
Kostecki stunned Australian motorsport earlier this month by ruling himself out of the Supercars season opener at Mount Panorama when his feud with Erebus became public.
Todd Hazelwood was drafted in to the team to replace Kostecki, at least for the time being, while Jack Le Brocq remains in his seat with the Erebus.
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Both parties in the disagreement have remained relatively tight-lipped on the genesis of the ugly impasse, which threatens to drag on past this weekend’s action at the Bathurst 500.
And in their first formal sit-down interview since the bombshell dropped on the eve of the season, Klimenko and Ryan again refused to go into detail about the rift.
Fox Sports Supercars commentator Jess Yates asked the obvious question, which was given the straight-bat answer from Klimenko, but not before a painfully awkward pause.
Klimenko and Ryan looked blankly into the distance in silence for an extended moment before coming up with an answer.
“We respect the privacy of Brodie and, because of that, we can’t say anything,” Klimenko eventually said.
“We need to look forward and talk about Todd and Jack.
“But as far as Brodie’s concerned, we can’t say a word.”
Pressed on whether they thought Kostecki would ever race again under the Erebus banner, Ryan and Klimenko were both at a loss to come up with an answer.
“It’s still ‘TBA’. We respect Brodie’s privacy and we’ll see where it comes to in the next week or two,” Ryan said.
“It’s not up to us yet.”
Klimenko added: “It’s not in our hands.”
Ryan became emotional and struggled to hold back tears when asked about the fallout.
“At the end of last year, we were on top of the world. Everybody believed in us,” Ryan said.
“To have people that decided that they didn’t believe in us anymore, that hurts.
“There’s been so much hate, and I’m not that sort of person. I’m not a bully.
“And these will be (seen as) fake tears by social media. I’m prepared for all that.”
Klimenko and Ryan have copped criticism from all corners since the news broke of Kostecki’s absence from the season opener.
Three-time Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen labelled the row a “sad situation” for Kostecki, while former competition powerbroker Roland Dane accused Erebus of being a “toxic workplace”.
A number of sponsors — including Coca-Cola, Shaw and Partners and Southern Cross Truck Rentals — also withdrew their support.
“(The record) will be set straight at some point. That’s not what matters,” Klimenko went on.
“What matters is that we respect Brodie’s privacy. We respect the fact that we can’t say anything and we’ve just had to take this on.
“We’ve had to take on the haters … but sometimes in the dead of the night, you just can’t let it go.
“Coming in today, I burst into tears on the plane. I just wanted to go home, but then I thought, ‘no, I’ve got a team down here waiting for me’.
“The hurt is something that is real.”
Ryan said it was difficult to break the news of Brodie’s exit to the team, but that everyone moved on seamlessly.
“We didn’t really say anything about why, because we can’t, so we just got together and said, ‘If there is a situation with Brodie, how are we going to replace him for the short-term’,” Ryan said.
“We came up with a list of names and Todd rose to the top. Todd was going to be a co-driver anyway, so we’d already selected him at the top of the tree of all the drivers that you can have that aren’t main drivers, so he was naturally going to be the fill-in.
“Todd is a very focused guy. He can’t believe he’s got this opportunity — we are the best team in pit lane at the moment, we’ve got the best cars, so him and Jack have got the best opportunity to win some races.
“That’s what we want to see them do just so they can prove to people that might not know how good they are.”
Klimenko said the team had shown commendable professionalism after being dealt the news.
“They’ve been very professional; same atmosphere, same everything else. They’re happy, they’ve got their music playing — they just do what they’re meant to do,” she said.
The pair also insisted they were holding up well, personally, after the tumult over the past few weeks.
“I’m good, I’m good. I didn’t think I’d start the year like this, but I’m happy,” Klimenko said.
Ryan added: “Good; as good as can be with what we’ve been through. The system’s normal here; same crew, front of pit lane which is awesome for the team, and just trying to soak in what we did last year”.
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