{"id":608060,"date":"2026-04-15T08:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T08:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/608060\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T08:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T08:25:19","slug":"barry-ryan-responds-to-erebus-motorsports-supercars-form-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/608060\/","title":{"rendered":"Barry Ryan responds to Erebus Motorsport&#8217;s Supercars form in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THERE was a real feeling of hope about Erebus Motorsport entering the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship.<\/p>\n<p>With the ugliness that engulfed its championship defences two years ago having faded, the team got back to its youth development-orientated roots with a talented driver line-up of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1701-Cooper-Murray\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cooper Murray<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2756-Jobe-Stewart\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jobe Stewart<\/a> \u2013 the very two guys who almost pulled off a Bathurst 1000 boilover last October.<\/p>\n<p>Throw in the additions of veteran team manager Dean Orr and up-and-coming engineer Daniel Frencham \u2013 the latter allowing for CEO Barry Ryan to get back to focusing on CEO things \u2013 and it felt as if all the ingredients were there for Erebus to resume punching above its weight.<\/p>\n<p>Thus far, it has not panned out.<\/p>\n<p>Three rounds in, Erebus is anchored to the bottom of the pitlane order and its drivers are last and second-last in the points.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/erebus-motorsport-from-challengers-to-champions-book?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/erebus-champions-book_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s been reliability woes, struggles for pace, and general bad luck (e.g. Murray repeatedly getting wiped out while running well at Albert Park).<\/p>\n<p>While a parity investigation is playing out in relation to the Camaros, Ryan is refusing to play the p-word.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want to blame anything until we\u2019re doing a good job,\u201d he told V8 Sleuth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have just got to do a better job.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have got to give Jobe the time. A bit disappointed Cooper is not up there a bit more, because he showed some glimpses at least at Grand Prix.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/RGP-2026-ITM-Taupo-Super440-_25A4492-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-253964\"  \/>Jobe Stewart. Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n<p>This weekend\u2019s ITM Christchurch Super440 is viewed as a golden opportunity to climb the pecking order being that it\u2019s new to the calendar, and after taking a slight step forward in seeing Stewart manage his season-best qualifying result last time out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe found a few things (on Saturday in Taup\u014d), we think,\u201d said Ryan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just tried a different direction because the car is not doing what it did last year or the year before.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhatever they did in the off-season to make the GM match, or whatever they did, has made us go in a totally different direction with the set-up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo that combined with an inexperienced driver and a second-year driver, I\u2019m not making excuses, but that\u2019s where we are.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have just got to keep working hard. We\u2019ve been there before, we have just got to do it again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just hard to do this when we won the championship three years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut anyway, we\u2019ll keep fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/1-12-scale-2023-adelaide-500-99-chevrolet-camaro-brodie-kostecki-model-1?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ACD18C23CW_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Christchurch form will be extra important for all in the paddock, given <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/why-christchurch-is-supercars-biggest-round-in-25-years\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it carries the most points of any Supercars round in 25 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>All up, 400 points will be available at Ruapuna, thanks to the Sunday Taup\u014d race being rescheduled to this Friday.<\/p>\n<p>RAW: 2001 BOC Gases Australian Super Touring finale at Oran Park, Race 1 highlights<\/p>\n<p>No commentary, just engine sounds and atmosphere!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THERE was a real feeling of hope about Erebus Motorsport entering the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship. With the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-608060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}