The Ford homologation team has struggled since the start of the Gen3 era, with Will Davison’s second place and Anton De Pasquale’s third place in a wet Race 7 of the season being its first double podium result since August 2022 at Sandown.
De Pasquale backed that up with another third place in a dry Sunday encounter at the ITM Taupo Super400, and the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy for the ‘round win, helping Dick Johnson Racing jump from 10th to fourth in the teams’ championship over the course of the weekend.
Now, though, a different track and a different challenge awaits, namely Wanneroo Raceway.
“The mood’s good,” said Davison.
“Obviously, always important to have a big weekend; a double podium on the Saturday was really special.
“It’s obviously what we expect, we know it’s what we’re capable of, but important time just to get the vibes back up, get everyone to really believe in themselves because we know what we’re capable of.
“To see Anton bring home the Jason Richards trophy as well for the team I think was very, very special, very cool to see it sitting there.
“So, we’ve just got to keep building, not get carried away, and just use it as momentum to keep working hard and see if we can back it up at a very different circuit.
“That’s going to be the real test for us.”
Team Principal Ryan Story declared that the DJR camp was “happier … but we’re not happy” with its performance in New Zealand, and he too cited Wanneroo as a question mark.
Taupo was compared to the Wanneroo of old by more experienced Supercars drivers, Davison included, with the West Australian track having been notoriously hard on tyres before a resurface in January 2019 dulled its coarseness.
“[It is] A little bit different to the last round, I think; obviously, the tyre deg there is probably the worst we’re going to see for the year and Perth, the last couple years, hasn’t been too bad,” said De Pasquale.
“Plus, the race is always quite late there so it’s not too warm, it’s cooling off.
“So, generally it’s a sprint race the whole way, flat-out.
“Pit stops are going to matter and how all that strategy works out will play a part but, generally, a fast car will be the key.”
This weekend marks the debut of the new-for-2024 SuperSprint format, with the Bosch Power Tools Perth event comprised of two, 55-lap/133km races as opposed to last year’s trio of 100km affairs.
Practice 1 starts on Friday at 14:20 local time/16:20 AEST.
