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While Walkinshaw Andretti United clearly benefited from a pre-Perth test day, the next event of the season raises a major question mark, namely how it will handle the super soft tyre.
Mostert was first to the chequered flag in both races at Wanneroo although he was classified second in the latter due to an unsafe release penalty.
Ordinarily, that should make the #25 Mobil 1 Optus Mustang the car to beat next week at Hidden Valley, but the circuit was not kind to Mostert in particular when the Supercars field contested the first Betr Darwin Triple Crown of the Gen3 era.
The two-time Bathurst 1000 winner certainly raced far better than he qualified, but qualifying no higher than 17th – and as low as 25th – left him with a battle on his hands and he never finished any of the weekend’s three races higher than eighth.
He highlighted the super soft compound of tyre, which makes its first appearance of the season at Hidden Valley, as a big factor.
“The biggest challenge will be the super soft tyre,” declared Mostert.
“The three different compounds change the characteristics of the car a lot.
“I don’t think the degradation up there will be the factor but, compared to where we were at Darwin last year – I watched the recaps from last year – I don’t think I qualified off the second-last row.
“So, it’ll be great to hopefully go up there, know that we’ve made some improvements, and delete that last year out of our mind as well.
“We’ll just see if we’re good on the super soft tyre. If not, we’ve got some things in the bank that we need to try and chuck at it to try and make it happen, but we’ll, we’ll see how we go.”
The super soft will also be rolled out this year at Symmons Plains and the Sandown 500, the latter of which was the most recent event at which Supercars raced on the softest compound in Dunlop’s slick tyre range.
There, Mostert qualified 16th, eighth of the Mustang contingent, before he and Lee Holdsworth combined for 22nd in the 161-lap race (19th at the chequered flag plus a time penalty), although tyres were certainly not the only factor in a weekend of struggles for WAU.
Next week in the NT, there is the added consideration of the lower than usual minimum tyre pressure of 15psi, which was introduced for the Perth event.
Off the back of his first win in 18 months – his and WAU’s first of the Gen3 era, and hence the team’s first with Ford – Mostert is starting to believe that 2024 could finally be his championship year, but is wary of false hope.
“I’m at that age now, I can’t say I’m a rookie anymore,” the 32-year-old remarked.
“Everyone keeps telling me we’ve been in the sport about 10 years, [but] the championship’s eluded me.
“I’ve only really had one year where I thought we were a shot at that and I didn’t even finish the year, in 2015, so I feel like it’s a good opportunity this year.
“But, I don’t want to be cliché, too; everyone has one unbelievable round and then say, yeah, they’re back.
“So, we just need to keep building these, next couple of rounds. You know, we gave a few points away at the start of this year, which hurt a little bit; losing the wheel at Taupo, probably there’s been another one at Grand Prix where Chaz probably was a bit aggressive with the car.
“It’s good to think that hopefully our championship can start now and keep pushing, and we’ll see if we can make these other guys make some mistakes along the way.”
On-track Repco Supercars Championship action at Hidden Valley starts on Friday, June 14.
