DJR CEO: Qualifying performance 'just not good enough'

Dick Johnson Racing CEO David Noble insists his team isn't turning a blind eye on the qualifying struggles that have undone the team's last two rounds.

Across the last two events in Tasmania and Perth, star Shell V-Power Racing Team recruit Brodie Kostecki has an average qualifying result of 11.7, and 18.5 for Will Davison.

Kostecki's qualifying average was 6.5 across the Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand events, headlined by two pole positions in Taupō, with Davison recording a 12.4 average.

It marks drops of 5.2 and 6.1 positions for Kostecki and Davison respectively.

Four-time Perth winner Davison arrived in the West getting up to speed in his new car amid the veteran continuing to adapt to DJR's new-for-2025 set-up philosophy, as well as engineer Tom Moore. In Perth, he could only qualify 15th, 12th and 20th.

2023 Supercars champion Kostecki started the weekend strongly with results of third and sixth in Saturday qualifying, before ending up 15th on Sunday.

All told, it led to race results of fifth, seventh and 11th for Kostecki, and 14th, 10th and 16th for Davison, the duo sixth and 12th for the round.

While DJR is set to play the long game as it aims to get both drivers into the Finals, Noble reiterated that its current qualifying form isn't enough to help deliver strong race results.

“It’s pretty simple. You cannot qualify where we are and expect the race pace to do the work," Noble said in a Ford Performance release.

"It’s just not good enough. But there is still the long game to play with the new Finals format.

“We’re definitely going to go and pull it apart, we’ve got work to do, 100%. We’re not sweeping it under the carpet.”

Kostecki and Davison remain seventh and 14th in the championship heading to Darwin, where the team has an average qualifying average of 9.8 and race average of 11.3 in the Gen3 era. Davison scored a podium in the first race of the 2023 event.

Tickets for the upcoming Darwin round, on June 20-22, are on sale now.