De Pasquale left wanting more despite big Finals move

Despite claiming his first podium of the year and climbing back inside the top 10 in the battle for The Finals, Anton De Pasquale was still left to wonder what could've been after the betr Darwin Triple Crown.

After a strong start to life in Charlie Schwerkolt's operation saw him claim seventh or eight in the six completed races in Sydney and Melbourne, the form of the Victorian dipped in New Zealand, Tasmania, and Perth.

His betr Darwin Triple Crown weekend initially looked set to follow that trend, being buried in the pack during Friday practice, however things turned around markedly with the Super Soft tyres in Race 18.

De Pasquale qualified and finished a fine second on Saturday afternoon, before translating that speed back onto the Soft tyre for Sunday, qualifying third and finishing seventh.

"Solid weekend for us, it started a bit weak, and then on the Super Softs we were really strong," said De Pasquale on Supercars' Cool Down Lap podcast.

"Obviously that's when we got the podium, and then we had to work hard today to turn it around, qualified up the front, battled through some dramas.

"Didn't quite work out the race like it could've, but still happy."

As a result of his strong finish to the weekend, De Pasquale has now returned to the top 10 in points for the first time since the second race in Tasmania, however it could've very easily gone awry for the #18 Camaro.

De Pasquale struggled with clutch dramas through Saturday and Sunday's Shootout, despite attempting a fix overnight, although the issue didn't appear to impact on his outright speed.

"In the race it was fine, we changed everything. It's hard because I had a bit of a drama yesterday that wasn't really hurting me, but Broc [Feeney] smoked me off the line and I was just having an issue with the clutch," De Pasquale said.

"So we changed it, and that brought on another issue, and then basically in qualy today I had no clutch on downshifts, which makes these cars really hard to drive.

"Half of this lap is sort of one downshift flow, but in the big stops we were compromised. Otherwise, lucky the car was good enough in the Shootout, I still qualified third.

"I would've liked to have another go with a full working clutch, but still from where we were, we were 19th yesterday morning, and now we're fighting at the front, it's cool."

The 2025 Repco Supercars Championship continues at the NTI Townsville 500 from July 11-13. Tickets for the event are on sale now.

Finals Focus: Anton De Pasquale

Championship position at end of each round, gap to 10th