Davison grappling with Kostecki-inspired philosophy

Will Davison is getting up to speed with a new yet "totally different" set-up philosophy for his Shell V-Power Ford Mustang, which is inspired by Brodie Kostecki and Dick Johnson Racing's engineer recruits.

A veteran of 573 races, Davison is embarking on his 19th full-time Supercars campaign, and fifth with DJR after rejoining the famous Ford team in 2021.

After four seasons under the previous engineering group alongside Anton De Pasquale, Davison has been joined by former Erebus Motorsport driver and engineers George Commins and Tom Moore.

While Kostecki and Commins continued their working relationship that started in 2021, Davison completed his first weekend under Moore, who previously engineered Will Brown (2021-23) and Jack Le Brocq (2024) at Erebus.

Both drivers have also received new cars for 2025; however, where Kostecki is racing an Erebus-built chassis, Davison is currently steering a new Mustang built around a PACE Innovations centre cage.

Amid the big changes, it was a turbulent weekend for two-time Bathurst winner Davison, who finished 21st, 24th and ninth in Sydney, leaving Round 1 in 15th overall, all while fighting ill health.

Kostecki, Commins and Moore are among a dozen new faces in the DJR crew, and while Davison admitted there were areas where the team was "underdone," he said he was personally getting his head around the new set-ups.

"We're just gelling. We're just settling with one another," Davison told Supercars' Cool Down Lap podcast after Race 3.

"Unfortunately, on the big scale, pretty underdone in a few ways. Just everyone learning the processes of this team. 12 new faces.

After a tough Friday and being hit out of contention on Saturday, Davison rebounded to finish ninth on Sunday, ending his first weekend with Moore on a high.

All told, despite the changes, Davison hailed the "good vibes" and "good energy" of what he sees as a "resilient bunch" at DJR, which is chasing its first win since Townsville 2023.

"Tom was really methodical. We didn't really feel like we even got working well together until like last night,” Davison said.

"It was like we finally started to understand how they tune the car. Bit by bit we started to make some sense of it. We’re not there, but we finished on a pretty good note today.

"But we had a lot of issues, to be honest, niggling issues which were very costly, on day one and two in the races, but no major issues today, it was a good clean day."

Track action at the Melbourne SuperSprint will commence on Thursday March 13.