Kostecki delivers verdict on start with DJR

Brodie Kostecki may still be adjusting to life in Shell V-Power Ford colours, but the 2023 Supercars champion has already identified a positive trend for Dick Johnson Racing.

Kostecki sits an impressive fifth in the drivers’ standings just two rounds into the 2025 Repco Supercars Championship, behind Will Brown, Cam Waters, Broc Feeney and Chaz Mostert.

The aforementioned four drivers all have at least two podiums each through the first two rounds, while Kostecki is still hunting his first trophy of the season.

However, despite hitting hurdles in Sydney and Melbourne, Kostecki has ended both weekends on the fringe of the podium, only missing out on the final lap in Melbourne after charging from 10th.

Speaking to Supercars.com after the Grand Prix, the 2024 Bathurst winner feels DJR is building serious momentum through race weekends.

“It's been a little bit up and down,” he said.

“It’s taken myself a little bit to get adjusted to the new car and new team. But we seem to be building quite strong towards the back end of the weekend.

"I think we saw that at Sydney, racing as for a podium. We did it at the Grand Prix as well, racing back through in the Saturday race from 10th up to the back of the podium."

Kostecki admitted, however, that DJR has been playing catch-up from practice onwards. While the expectation is to fight for wins, Kostecki again conceded there was still more work to be done.

"I think the expectation has always got to be to strive to be the best,” he said.

“We had expectations going into the first round to obviously try and win as many races as we could, and same going to Grand Prix. But the reality was we weren't just quite good enough.

"Obviously coming from a different manufacturer to Ford this year, there's been a few things regarding performance between those two that have been sort of a bit of an eye opener to myself.

“So we've working hard behind the scenes, as the HT [homologation team], to try and resolve those issues."

DJR laid down its best weekend of 2024 in New Zealand last year, with both cars reaching the Saturday podium and Anton De Pasquale winning the Jason Richards Trophy.

However, Kostecki played down simple suggestions of a repeat, saying the team has new cars, new engineers, a new philosophy — as explained by Davison — and a new format to contend with.

Taupō will see the debut of the new Super 440 format, where drivers will vie for three wins across two 120km sprint races on Saturday and a 200km refuelling race on Sunday.

To add to the challenge of Super 440 events, the Saturday sprint races at these events will be split between the new-for-2025 Dunlop Soft tyre and Dunlop Super Soft tyre.

“So much has changed just in the last sort of 12 months,” Kostecki said.

“We have a new tyre now and we're going to a new car that behaves quite a lot different to the GM product. For us, it's just trying to learn off what we've done the last two rounds.

“Also, hopefully we can roll out of the truck a little bit better. We've been a little bit behind starting off in Practice 1 and it takes too long to recover. So as long as we can fix that up, hopefully we can trend to the front a bit more.”

The 2025 Repco Supercars Championship will resume in New Zealand at the ITM Taupō Super 440 on April 11-13. Tickets for the event are on sale now.