The crucial question WAU could have answered

By the end of 2024, Walkinshaw Andretti United had mounted its best championship challenge in years, yet still fell well short of Triple Eight.

Chaz Mostert won three races — albeit all on the Soft tyre compound — and was cruelly denied a mathematical shot at the title after electrical and pit stop dramas at the penultimate round.

Looking at the raw numbers, though, Super Soft rounds largely buried Mostert’s 2024 hopes.

While he gave away an average of 21 and 34 points per round to Brown at Soft and Hard events, he lost an average of 63 points per round to Brown at Super Soft events.

Mostert had an average qualifying result of 12.8 at Super Soft events last year, compared to a Soft average of 4.9.

Crucially, at the first round with the Super Soft tyre in 2025, Mostert qualified second and denied Brodie Kostecki to win Race 9 in New Zealand, setting the fastest lap along the way.

While it was a breakout result for Mostert and WAU, who raced to victory lane for the first time in 2025, it was even more telling that it came on the tyre that drove a dagger through the team’s 2024 campaign.

Notably, Mostert outlasted Kostecki in a battle for ages, hanging onto his tyres after the pit stops after a robust battle and surviving a serious test to retain grip in an uninterrupted race.

While the team tripped over on the Super Soft in Darwin last year, Mostert failing to qualify in the top 20, there was slight improvement in Tasmania, where the Super Soft will be used in two of three races next weekend.

The two-time Bathurst winner qualified 11th and fifth for the two Tasmania races last year, but used a three-tyre strategy to come just 0.6s short of victory on Saturday.

The jury may still be out on whether WAU has truly managed to fix Mostert's Super Soft woes, given the abrasive Taupō surface is a different beast compared to the smoother Symmons Plains surface, Mostert’s Taupō win could prove key to his 2025 hopes.

Where five races were held on the Super Soft last season, there are seven left in 2025 — two in Tasmania, and one in Perth, Darwin, Ipswich, Gold Coast and Sandown.

The Taupō race was the only time Mostert has started on the front row this season, with WAU Team Principal Carl Faux adamant Mostert can be in contention for wins when they strike the right balance.

"Three races, three podiums and a win for Chaz Mostert, has got to be an okay weekend,” Faux said after New Zealand.

"I think we're still searching for the best combination of qualifying speed and race pace. When we get it right, we're definitely in contention.”

Mostert is just 86 points behind leader Brown heading to Round 3 at Symmons Plains. Drivers will contest three races in Tasmania, two of them on the Super Soft, across May 9-11.