Commins joined Kostecki in switching to DJR over the off-season from Erebus Motorsport, where they’d won the 2023 Supercars title and ’24 Bathurst 1000.
The duo, along with another ex-Erebus race engineer Tom Moore, were expected to bring their ‘secret sauce’ to a Ford squad that has largely struggled since the start of the Gen3 era.
However, aside from a pair of poles and a double podium for team drivers Will Davison and Kostecki at Taupo in April, the first half of the campaign proved a struggle.
In the wake of the Townsville win, Commins said the category’s new-for-2025 tyre meant a major rethink of the engineering philosophy used at Erebus was required for success.
“We’re running the car in a totally different way to what we’ve run in the last two years,” Commins told Speedcafe.
“Even though it’s a Mustang versus a Camaro, I think the new tyre has really shaken everything up. What worked in previous years just doesn’t work anymore, so you’ve got to find your way.
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“That’s how it is. It’s always evolving, this sport.
“We dropped ourselves in a bit of a setup window [in Townsville] that we’d been working through in Darwin. We were pretty happy where we finished Darwin…”
‘This feels special’: Kostecki breaks DJR duck in Townsville
Commins explained the team’s form in Taupo gave false hope and ultimately delayed the realisation they were on the wrong path.
“New Zealand was pretty strong for us and although the results were strong, Brodie was pretty unhappy with the balance overall,” Commins said.
“I sort of said, ‘well we’re quick, so it doesn’t matter’. That came back and bit us a bit in Tasmania, Perth, Darwin…
“During the mixed tyre rounds obviously we were better on the old tyre, which is another indication that you’re probably a bit out of where you need to be on the newer tyre.”
While Commins downplays the significance of switching from Camaro to Mustang, concerns over shortcomings with the Ford engine are also unlikely to have helped the transition.
“I think there’s still work to do on the engine side,” said Commins of the parity situation.
The team’s breakthrough victory came in the aftermath of news DJR has reached a settlement with Ford that will trigger the start of a handover of homologation team duties to Triple Eight.
It’s thought DJR had already begun focusing more intently on its own racing program in recent weeks, rather than be distracted by the ongoing parity battle.
Kostecki, Commins and Moore were not the only new faces at DJR this year with a major turnover of staff including the majority of the race crew.
Commins said getting the team to gel has been part of the challenge, which it attempted to tackle this week with a bonding session.
“Something like 80 percent of the race crew is new this year, only a couple of the boys on the cars have carried over from last year,” said Commins.
“Obviously myself and Tom were new so it was a lot of change, we were starting from scratch in a lot of ways. That’s been hard.
“The boys are working really hard on the pit stops but it’s still an area we need to improve.
“We’re slowly getting better but we’re competing against teams that have all been working together for five, six, eight years, all doing the same roles.”
Commins, who is based on the Sunshine Coast, did not attend the team’s Monday BBQ due to illness, but had his own reset since Darwin.
“I was away with my son for a couple of weeks doing a mountain biking trip down the south coast of New South Wales,” said Commins, who emerged unscathed from a sizeable crash during the adventure.
“It was good to clear my head for a couple of weeks and spend some time with my son.”
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