Mostert's new wildcard in victory mission

A new — yet familiar — engineer could prove a wildcard in Chaz Mostert’s mission to return to victory lane in 2024.

The Walkinshaw Andretti United Ford star will be engineered by Sam Scaffidi this season after long-time partner Adam De Borre moved on.

De Borre has since shifted focus to his own business, but will also help the development of Dunlop Series squad AIM Motorsport.

Replacing De Borre is Scaffidi, who is no stranger to Mostert.

Scaffidi was Mostert’s data engineer for five seasons at Tickford Racing, with their partnership headlined by the stunning Bathurst win in 2014.

He later moved into race engineering, skippering Lee Holdsworth in 2019 and 2020, Jack Le Brocq in 2021, and James Courtney for the last two seasons.

Scaffidi reunites with Mostert, who deputed Tickford at the end of 2019 to join WAU.

Mostert — who gave his new Mobil 1 Optus livery its track debut at a Phillip Island ride day on Wednesday — is keen to work with Scaffidi and end his victory drought.

"I have got a new engineer this year with Sam Scaffidi. I have worked with him previously at other teams but it's the first time of him being the whole reins of the car engineer for me," said Mostert, who enters 2024 on 87 career podiums.

Mostert ended 2023 as Ford's highest-ranked driver in the championship in fourth, but didn’t record a race win or pole position.

"The best thing about the first round is obviously that everyone's championship points are back to zero, so everyone at this point of the year is thinking bigger and better things than last year," he added.

"We didn't get a win last year, so that's something we obviously want to tick off nice and early in the season.

"We want to try to get a race win at the start of this year. We didn't get one last year and I'm still a bit bitter about that, to be completely honest.”

Mostert and rookie teammate Ryan Wood will test at Winton Motor Raceway on Wednesday February 7 ahead of the Thrifty Bathurst 500 on February 23-25.