The freshly-crowned Supercars champion will be at the forefront of Toyota’s entry to the series this year as the lead driver at homologation team Walkinshaw Andretti United.
That means he’ll be attempting to defend his title in a brand new car.
While parity work should ensure the aero and engine, both developed by WAU, should be on par with the Ford and GM packages, there will obviously be unknowns when it comes to optimal set-up in competitive conditions.
As such, Mostert is realistic that going back-to-back in terms of the title will be a “tough ask” – but not impossible.
Instead he thinks that WAU’s ultimately successful 2025 season is the perfect blueprint of turning around patchy form and having the car work when it matters – Finals.
“It’ll be a tough ask, for sure,” he said of defending his title on the KTM Summer Grill. “You know, we’re bringing a brand new car in.
“I think what will probably help us a little bit is exactly just the year we had [in 2025].
“We didn’t start with the strongest package. We worked extremely hard throughout the year to get ourselves in line with Finals.
“I think [it would be] be naive to think that what works for the Ford Mustang is going to work with a Toyota. Even though we have all our parity testing and tunnels, every car is slightly different in some way, so I’m sure the set-ups will have to be slightly different, and our mindset.
“I’m really proud that we didn’t feel like we had the package to start [2025] and we gave ourselves a shot at the end.
“So if anyone could tune [the Toyota], I know we can, and I’m excited to go on that journey next year.”
The Supra has now completed its offshore wind tunnel testing, while on-track work, largely focussed on engine development, continued into December.
Until that point the likes of Warren Luff and Fabian Coulthard had done the majority of the testing work.
There will be five Supras on the grid this season – two from WAU and three from Brad Jones Racing.
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