CHAZ Mostert is not getting ahead of himself after a last-start fourth-place finish at the Sydney 500.
The 2025 champion rode the highs and lows of the GR Supra’s first weekend in the Supercars Championship, from qualifying outside the top 15 for every race and being disqualified on a technical breach to leading a five-pronged Toyota top 10 result.
Reliability, performance and driveability all remain question marks on the engine side of things, and both Walkinshaw TWG Racing and Brad Jones Racing skipped the post-event Sydney corporate ride day to get straight into Albert Park preparations.
But taking all that into account is actually reason for Mostert to be buoyed by the competitiveness of a package still in its infancy.
“We were a little bit behind the eight-ball trying to tune a brand-new package, but overall just so proud of all the guys and girls at Walkinshaw TWG Racing to develop the Supra and see cars go round,” he told V8 Sleuth.
“You see the fans jumping ship from either red or blue… it’s pretty cool.”
While the Toyota (2UR-GSE) and Ford (Coyote) engines are similar in architecture, the Supra and Mustang are vastly divergent in body shape, and Mostert says the two models are “very different” to drive.
Anyhow, Sydney was just the starting point. Weekend one, if you will. Now comes a visit to Chevy country for the Melbourne SuperSprint (March 5-8).
“The other brands have been developing for three years, so very proud to be in the mix rubbing doors everyone back out there again,” said Mostert.
“Without (the disqualification) we probably would have been tapping around the top 10 in championship points which would have been nice… we’ll take that and go into the Grand Prix which will be some nice, chaotic sprint racing as we always see there.”
Mostert has four Supercars race wins at Albert Park, one of which was in a non-championship encounter.
Toyota has not managed a top-three finish in an all-comers ATCC race since Peter Williamson placed third at Oran Park in 1980.
Ryan Wood and Chaz Mostert. Pic: Ross Gibb