THERE was a specific approach behind Walkinshaw Andretti United putting a timely end to its home round hoodoo.
WAU star Chaz Mostert became the first driver to qualify for Supercars’ upcoming Adelaide Grand Final when he won the Saturday race at Sandown.
The historic circuit is located just 4km away from WAU’s current South Clayton premises, but prior to this month the squad had not tasted victory there since its Holden Racing Team days in 2016.
Last year, WAU team principal Carl Faux lashed a “diabolical” Sandown performance.
This time around, they landed on a solution that will be carried forward.
“We actually took a bit of a different approach coming into (Sandown) as a team, where we stayed as a complete unit,” Faux told V8 Sleuth.
“We treated it as an away round rather than a home round, so it’s a little bit of a different mentality I would say.
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“Just because we were playing on home soil, treat it like an away round like we have for all the others: don’t change the way we go motor racing. And if it works, it works.
“I can tell you we are going to do exactly the same thing again next year.”
It wasn’t a totally faultless weekend, with a wheel clip issue crippling Ryan Wood’s Sunday race while Mostert placed fourth despite crashing.
Nevertheless, WAU and Mostert are on a roll, and the title dream is very real for a team whose last drivers’ championship came in 2002 via Mark Skaife.
“The last time we had a 1-2 in Adelaide was 2022 and we’ll try to replicate that again in at least one of the races,” said Faux.
“We have been prepping for the last three rounds for most of the year, knowing that that’s where the game is this year.
“We have got one car in it, the driver is Chaz Mostert – he is pretty good. We generally go pretty good at Adelaide.”
Mostert’s grand final opponents are Broc Feeney, Will Brown and Kai Allen.