Little more than 12 months on, Allen is nearing the end of a rookie campaign that has to date netted five podium finishes and a berth in the Semi-Finals at Sandown next month.
All of that has been achieved at Grove Racing – an on-the-rise squad that snapped up Allen as soon as he become available and has taken over the mantle as Ford’s leading light.
While it’s doubtful Allen would have enjoyed the same level of instant success at a rebuilding DJR that is still battling with homologation team duties, hindsight says it let a serious talent slip.
DJR did so in favour of keeping favourite son Will Davison – figuring too that the veteran would be a better fit alongside star recruit Brodie Kostecki than fellow incumbent Anton De Pasquale.
The team had more than a fair look at Allen, having run the youngster as a wildcard in the 2023 Bathurst 1000 before moving him into co-driver duties alongside Davison the following year.
DJR management insisted behind-the-scenes that all the data and all the debriefs did not suggest Allen was a generational talent. Maybe it did not look hard enough.
Davison’s struggles this season have been plain to see. While some of it circumstantial and team-induced, 19th in points is a painful statistic for all involved.
Questions over Davison’s future have lingered since early in the campaign, questions that both team and driver robustly dismissed more than once. Davison, after all, had a contract.
Reassurances from DJR – both publicly and privately – appear to have been part of a multi-faceted effort to do all it could to turn Davison’s season around.
The biggest move was to pull Davison’s previous and preferred chassis from the National Motor Racing Museum and back into service ahead of the Bathurst 1000.
There were personnel and process changes around Davison’s car too, which DJR co-owner Ryan Story told Speedcafe came as part of the team’s responsibility to the driver.
“Every driver these days has MoTec i2 and reviews their own data critically. The benchmark or baseline for most is the bloke alongside them,” Story explained ahead of the Great Race.
“If the expectation is that the drivers look in the mirror when there’s more to deliver, so too must the team when the results are not where they need to be.”
Those quotes are perhaps more poignant given the month that followed, and the gulf between the two drivers in qualifying at Bathurst.
Davison told Speedcafe ahead of the Great Race that the changes had been made at his request to “unlock a few of the question marks we’ve got”.
He also noted that “you don’t just forget how to drive” in the weeks since he’d qualified on the second row of the grid in Townsville.
By this point DJR was actively assessing the young driver market, delving into timing reports and data made available through the Super2 Series.
Rylan Gray’s talent was hardly hiding. The 18-year-old has shown the way throughout the 2025 Super2 season, leading Tickford Racing’s dominant quartet.
With Tickford having long ago locked in its own line-up, driver mentor Mark Winterbottom is known to have advocated for Gray to other teams – including directly to DJR.
Ford and its Australian-based motorsport staff were also giddy for Gray, lauding the youngster’s work behind the wheel of Miedecke Motorsport’s GT4 Mustang.
At Bathurst it was apparent Gray had backed out of a deal to be mentored by GM star Craig Lowndes in the soon-to-be Team 18 domiciled Supercheap Auto wildcard program for 2026.
Gray had something bigger in his sights but faced a nervous wait.
“Hopefully we’ll have some answers in the next two or three months [about the future],” Gray told Speedcafe at Bathurst.
“The first dominoes have fallen in the silly season so hopefully that can knock some things into place, and we can sort of get in there somewhere.”
After Bathurst, DJR signed Gray to a wildcard and co-drive deal for 2026. This bought more time amid DJR’s Davison dilemma.
Rumours of a Gray-DJR deal began to spread at the Gold Coast 500, as did suggestions Davison was on the outer.
DJR’s co-owners are believed to have made their final decision in the wake of an event in which nothing seemed to go right on either side of the garage.
As revealed by Speedcafe on Friday morning, Davison was notified this week that he’d not be a full-time driver with the team in 2026. Gray would instead get the gig.
While Davison is yet to comment publicly beyond a team statement, the fact the relationship has been dissolved – rather than transitioned into a co-driver role – suggests a less than harmonious outcome.
Davison, 43, is an elite talent of his generation who clearly believes he still has more to give, but this time DJR could not resist grabbing a rising star from the next wave while it was available.
The selection of Gray will undoubtedly have come with some input from Kostecki, who DJR majority owner Brett Ralph earlier this year referred to as the “team captain”.
Lost in it all is Kostecki’s co-driver, Todd Hazelwood, to whom being overlooked could be considered a blow following a stunning job with the team in this year’s endurance races.
The choice of emerging talent Gray, 18, over safe-pair-of-hands Hazelwood, 30, is perhaps the greatest pointer to the level of DJR’s ambition to right its previous wrong.
“We’re investing in the future here,” said Story as part of today’s announcement.
“Brodie gives us proven championship-winning pace and pedigree, and Rylan represents our commitment to developing the next generation.”
Gray is expected to be one of five rookies on the Supercars Championship grid in 2026 – hardly a surprise given the way the next-gen drivers have taken to the Gen3 machinery.
Time will tell how Gray fares next season.
DJR will be looking for Gray to blossom into the best of the rookie bunch, while downplaying expectations of instant results in such a competitive championship.
One thing you can bet on is Kostecki taking over Dick Johnson’s famed #17 plate from Davison, as well as the associated prestige and pressure that can be both a blessing and a curse.
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