Davison hopeful of turnaround after 'really tough' run
Davison hopeful of turnaround after "really tough rounds"
DJR driver ranked 21st on points across last four events
Ford squad broke through in Townsville with Kostecki victory
While 2025 hasn't gone to plan to Will Davison, the Shell V-Power Racing Team veteran is hopeful a breakout Townsville weekend was a turning point for the team.
While new engineering philosophies and cars have favoured star recruit Brodie Kostecki, 22-time race winner Davison has been playing catch-up.
Davison sits 17th in the championship, 195 points outside the top 10, with three rounds remaining before The Finals cut-off. To next weekend's Ipswich round, Davison trails Kostecki 19-3 in qualifying, and 16-4 in races.
Kostecki's win in Townsville came on a day Davison qualified third. Davison held third early on, before a robust Anton De Pasquale dropped him to fifth. Then, he lost a position to Bryce Fullwood in the pits, before Chaz Mostert capitalised on the #17's cold tyres.
In the Saturday race, he was drilled by Will Brown, before he was forced to crawl back to pit lane on Sunday with a loose wheel.
They were the latest hits in what has proven a luckless season, but Davison insisted the best could be yet to come.
“As a team, we’ve had a huge amount of upheave,” Davison said on The Formation Lap.
“There’s been a lot of positives, but we've just had a lot of clumsy things catching us out, with a near on 80% staff turnover. But the general base we’ve got in the car is fantastic, and now we’re starting to put it together a bit more consistently.
“Hopefully Townsville was a real turning point. There’s been a lot of internal analysis and change every weekend, because there were some really tough rounds for me recently.
"I think we’re on the right trajectory now."
Davison expanded on his troubles, citing adapting to the new-for-2025 Soft tyre, two new cars, and new engineer Tom Moore as his biggest learning curves.
The 2009 series runner-up said changes were made leading into Townsville, which helped Davison find more balance on a tyre he claimed "walks around more" on corner entry and has greater "peak" speed, making it a challenge to find balance.
"It’s been a very interesting year, I won’t lie,” Davison said.
“Wearing the same colours as I have the last four years, but I nearly feel like the new guy to the team.
“New engineers, new philosophies, the way they’re talking, the lingo, I’m just trying to play catch-up.”
