Why DJR felt it had to protest the Bathurst 1000

DJR, in its final year as Ford’s homologation team, was at the forefront of a bitter parity battle that ran deep into the Great Race weekend.

The centrepiece was a Supercars study that outlined that the Ford V8 engine was at a disadvantage to the Chevrolet unit at the higher Bathurst altitude, proving a long-held theory from the Blue Oval teams.

The timing of the study, and subsequent moves from DJR and its Motorsport Powertrains business, to make a restrictor change to the Ford, meant sign-off was required from all teams.

Understandably, the proposal was rejected by the General Motors squads.

That led to DJR lodging a sensational protest to Motorsport Australia on the Saturday of the Bathurst 1000 over a ‘lack of fairness’.

The protest was ultimately deemed inadmissible and was dismissed.

Speaking on the KTM Summer Grill, Story admitted that the outcome was expected when the protest was lodged.

Still, he felt it was important to lodge the protest even if he knew it would be unsuccessful.

“I knew exactly what the outcome would be, but it was important to make it clear that we weren’t going to get pushed around,” Story explained.

“If you are promised the world and delivered an atlas and you take it quietly, then who’s the fool? Is it you, or is it someone else?

“It was a really difficult set of circumstances for us, but it was important that we stood tall and stood our ground.”

According to Story the protest wasn’t premeditated, rather a direct response to being told on the Friday evening that the hardware changes wouldn’t be allowed.

“There were some people at Supercars who believed that I’d been working all year on it, but that wasn’t the case,” he said.

“It was an overnight job, I think from Friday. I think we started Friday, Friday into Saturday, when we were told, officially, that was all off.

“It was a case of, okay, well, what’s our next step going to be?

“It’s a little ugly. I wouldn’t say it was pretty, but it was important.

“We saw it as a miscarriage of justice, so to speak, and put it out there accordingly.”

One element of awkwardness around the protest was how dominant DJR driver Brodie Kostecki had been throughout qualifying and the Top 10 Shootout.

In fact, as news of the protest came to light, Mustangs locked out the first two rows of the Bathurst 1000 grid.

Story admits that it did mean there was an initial PR hit for DJR and Ford – however, the narrative changed in the early stages of the race itself when the Triple Eight Camaros started to show signs of dominance in dry conditions.

“We use a lot of the tools that I use in my political life with the race team, and we measure social sentiment,” he said.

“There was a fair bit of anti-DJR talk and anti-Ford talk right up until about two hours into the race. And then it did a full 180 and the sentiment was very firmly, ‘oh, maybe they were right’. And very pro-DJR and very pro-Ford.

“I think that the result was indicative of that up until the heavens opened.

“But [the engine disparity] is just something that the series needs to fix, and they’re all over it. They know the problem. They know the solution. It’ll be fixed for 2026.”