DJR 2025 season review: Flashes of promise in a rebuilding year
As 2025 winds down, Supercars.com is looking over all 11 teams and their performances in this year's Repco Supercars Championship, continuing with Matt Stone Racing.
The Brodie Kostecki era has begun at Dick Johnson Racing, and it's got off to a mixed start.
That was to be expected of course, the team had been mired in a slump since the Gen3 era began, and there were certainly tough weekends for the newly-minted #38, and DJR as a whole.
But, there were still occasions where Kostecki proved that when he is on song, he is nearly impossible to stop.
His three wins at Townsville, The Bend, and Adelaide were all dominant, and came as welcome relief to a team that had been starved of wins in 2024. In fact, his win at The Bend alongside trusty co-driver Todd Hazelwood was DJR's first '500' win since 2001.
And then there was his run at Bathurst, where he scorched his way to a third consecutive pole, before his day was undone by a myriad of car issues, and mistakes made when trying to rag a failing car in appalling conditions.
Whilst his Finals run came to crunching halt with a big crash in Gold Coast qualifying, it was a season that proved DJR signed the right people to help steer the ship back in the right direction, with engineers George Commins and Tom Moore arriving from Erebus with Kostecki.
However on the other side of the garage, it just never clicked for Will Davison, who struggled to his lowest points finish since 2010, in what turned out to be his final full-time season in Supercars.
For a warrior of the sport who has been fighting at the front more often than not for nearly 20 years, it wasn't a true reflection of Davison's talents to go out the way that he did. But, motorsport is a cruel game.
Dick Johnson Racing: 2025 season results and head-to-heads
Drivers' finish: Brodie Kostecki 9th, Will Davison 20th
Teams' finish: 6th
Best result: 1st (Brodie Kostecki, Townsville, The Bend, Adelaide)
Qualifying head-to-head: Brodie Kostecki 30, Will Davison 4
Race head-to-head: Brodie Kostecki 26, Will Davison 5
What's next in 2026?
The changes will keep flowing into 2026, with management and driver changes both coming into effect.
Prior to Sandown, CEO David Noble announced he would leave the team at the end of the year, whilst Mark Fenning moves from Director of Engineering to Team Principal, Tom Moore becomes Team Manager, and Ed Williams moves into a race engineering role.
The experienced Williams will oversee one of the most highly-touted prospects in Australian motorsport, as 2025 Dunlop Super2 Series champion Rylan Gray steps up to the main game.
The teenager from the NSW Hunter Valley was the development series standout with Tickford, and will have one of Supercars' benchmark drivers to learn off in Kostecki.
It's also a new challenge for Kostecki, who will assume the role of the experienced mentor in his sixth season in Supercars. There's no question that he is in the prime of his career to bring a young gun under his wing.
Whilst it is unmistakably Kostecki's team now, don't be surprised to see Gray turn in some starring performances once he gets up to speed in the main game.
DJR were quick to snap up Gray when the opportunity arose, and especially so after Kai Allen's development deal lapsed midway through 2024.
With a battle-hardened champion and DJR's youngest ever full-time driver to lead the charge for an ever-evolving DJR, there's plenty of reason to be excited for fans of the Shell V-Power Mustangs.
The views in this article do not necessarily express the opinions of Supercars, teams or drivers.
