Erebus Motorsport boss Barry Ryan has broken down as he defended his character amid the ongoing Brodie Kostecki saga, saying he is not a “bully” as he and team owner Betty Klimenko stressed it was “not up to us” if the reigning champion raced for the team this year.
Breaking their silence over the bombshell falling out which has rocked the championship team and Supercars, the Erebus team chiefs were unable to shed light on why Kostecki would not be on the grid for the season-opening Bathurst 500 as Klimenko said she had to “respect Brodie’s privacy”.
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After claiming his maiden Supercars championship with Erebus last season, Kostecki will be conspicuously absent from the grid when the 2024 championship gets underway this weekend after the breakdown in relations with the team.
Todd Hazelwood will race in Kostecki’s place at Bathurst and Ryan said it was still to be determined who would be in the car for the next round at the Australian Grand Prix – and beyond that.
There remains doubt over whether Kostecki will race for Erebus again.
While Ryan and Klimenko were tight-lipped on talks with Kostecki, they opened up on the personal toll the situation had taken on them both.
“The biggest thing for me is … my wife and daughters making sure I’m not going to hurt myself or do something silly because there has been so much hate,” an emotional Ryan said in an interview with Fox Sports’ Jess Yates.
“I’m not that sort of person, I’m not a bully, I don’t do anything but care for people.
“(Through) the whole process of this I’ve had one of my best mates’ wife pass away and I have been in intensive care hospitals with him and trying to support him.
“These will be (seen as) fake tears by social media soon. I’m prepared for all that.
“At the end of last year we were on top of the world and everybody believed in us and now, to have people decide they didn’t believe in us anymore, that hurts.
“I’ve got to have the energy to make sure we can rebuild this and do it again, which I have. But it hurts, it definitely hurts.”
Klimenko added: “Barry, you have a heart of gold, but it’s just that they don’t see it.”
The Erebus owner said the saga had also impacted her family.
“The worst was when one of my grandchildren, I don’t know how they read it, but they read it somewhere and said to my son ‘Is Grandma a bad lady’ and that did me in,” Klimenko said.
“I just had to go ‘No, I am not a bad lady, I’m just not saying anything’.
“We have just had to take this on, we have had to take on the haters, take on the people that are saying these things and try to let it go, but sometimes in the dead of night you can’t let it go, it affects you.
“I burst into tears on the plane (coming here) because I wanted to go home. But then I thought ‘No, I have got a team down here waiting for me, I have got fans here waiting’.
“But the hurt is something that is real and you just have to let it go.”
Asked to shed light on the current situation with Kostecki, Klimenko said the team was unable to say anymore.
“We respect the privacy of Brodie … and because of that we can’t say anything,” she said.
“We need to look forward and talk about Todd and Jack (Le Brocq), but as far as Brodie’s concerned we can’t say a word.
“It will be set straight at some point, but that’s not what matters.
“What matters is that we respect Brodie’s privacy, we respect the fact that we can’t say anything.”
Pressed on whether Kostecki would race for Erebus at all this year, Klimenko said “that’s not up to us. It’s not in our hands.”
Klimenko vowed the team would hit back on the track.
“Don’t worry, this is only bus No. 167, we have been under so many buses, Baz,” she said.
“We always work our way up.”
Erebus claimed both the drivers’ and team’s championships last year, but has an all-new driver line-up at the opening round with Le Brocq replacing Will Brown, who defected to rivals Triple Eight.
Amid the Kosteck drama, Erebus lost its two major sponsors from last season, including naming rights backers Coca-Cola.
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