DJR’s swing from pole to pain

The day promised so much for Dick Johnson Racing. Brodie Kostecki was the outright favourite after a controversial weekend off the track, but by the end of Sunday the pain was very real.

After a week shaped by a dismissed parity protest and a statement pole lap, Dick Johnson Racing’s Bathurst 1000 came down to a bruising Sunday that put both Shell V-Power Mustangs on the back foot.

Car #17 crashed out of contention in the changing weather, while the sister car, the pole-winning #38, survived driving issues before an alternator failure forced a lengthy repair.

Race day began with Brodie Kostecki carrying the weight of expectation in slippery, low-grip conditions. The first phase was tidy and controlled, but the middle stanza unravelled as the weather swung between dismal and abysmal.

The race started well with Todd Hazelwood leading from pole. Image: Peter Norton

Contact in the pack earned the #17 a penalty, then an off at The Chase inflicted further damage before the alternator ultimately ended its hopes. It was an uncharacteristic sequence for Kostecki, who has been relentlessly clean this season, and it left DJR recalibrating its strategy rather than dictating the lead battle.

Team principal David Noble kept the focus on the broader form line while acknowledging the sting.

“It did not end the way we wanted it to,” he said. “You cannot dismiss the good work from the weekend just because things did not pan out. The drivers have felt comfortable in the car at the last two rounds, and our race-run consistency has improved.

“Today, we were not close enough to the front when the conditions swung back our way.”

The Kostecki/Hazelwood car’s day was a different kind of grind. The crew managed changing balance and visibility through the wet-dry-wet shuffle, only for the electrics to intervene. A voltage drop triggered a precautionary battery change, but with charge still falling, the team called the car to pit lane for an alternator swap under green. The Mustang returned to the track with full power and competitive lap times, yet the time loss and Safety Car timing meant the damage was done.

“Our crew did an awesome job to get the guys back in,” Noble said. “We changed the battery, it was not charging, and we got to the point where we needed to do something more substantial, so we changed the alternator. Once it went back out, the car performed well.”

Across the final stint, with fog building across the top and spray thick on Conrod Straight, the race became a test of judgement. Noble said Kostecki found his rhythm late, but track position and the earlier stop locked the result.

“He was humming right at the end, and he loves those conditions,” Noble noted. “We just were not close enough to do any damage up the front.”

But soon things went downhill with Brodie Kostecki having a number of flashpoints amid mechanical gremlins. Image: Peter Nortom

The ebb and flow of the afternoon put extra emphasis on error minimisation and Safety Car placement.

A crash to Tony D’Alberto in his 10^th run at Bathurst for DJR cut the day short early. On Lap 54, it was the reason for the day’s first of seven Safety Cars.

Regardless of the poor return from what started so positively, albeit with plenty of controversy, ended with speed but no results worth speaking about.

Noble said the internal takeaways matched the form curve that started at The Bend. The set-up window has widened, the drivers have a more predictable platform, and the one-lap peak shown in the Top 10 Shootout translated into honest race pace before the setbacks.

“Lap time has been the focus, not trap speed,” he said, pointing to DJR’s claims of a parity disadvantage on top speeds at Bathurst. “The boys have nailed the set-ups and given the guys a good race car and a good feel for what they can do.”

The ledger from Sunday is blunt, pole to pain in a single day, yet the team left Mount Panorama with a clear handle on cause and effect. Car 17’s crash and car 38’s alternator change were the highlight stories, and neither situation flattered DJR on the timing sheet, but both reinforced operational strengths that will matter with finals now live and Kostecki well in the thick of it.

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