Dick Johnson Racing star Anton De Pasquale ready to turn Ford’s season around
This time last season, Anton De Pasquale said it was hard for the Ford drivers to see light at the “end of the tunnel”. Now he is hoping to turbo-charge his own Ford fightback.
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Dick Johnson Racing star Anton De Pasquale is determined to maximise his own Ford fightback in the second half of this year’s Supercars campaign after emerging from the “biggest battle of your life” the Blue Oval faced last year.
Ahead of this weekend’s Darwin Triple Crown at Hidden Valley Raceway, De Pasquale said he had been buoyed by the turnaround in Ford’s fortunes after the Mustang’s best round since the start of the Gen3 era and hoped to continue his own resurgence on track.
De Pasquale bounced back after a tough start to his 2024 campaign when he was forced to retire from one race and then failed to start in the finale - due to a suspension issue - in a nightmare round at the Melbourne SuperSprint.
He had slipped to 21st in the drivers’ championship at the end of the Albert Park round, but revived his fortunes at Taupo in New Zealand when he claimed the Jason Richards memorial trophy after back-to-back podiums.
De Pasquale backed up with two top-10 results at the last round in Perth as fellow Ford drivers Chaz Mostert and Cam Waters took the two race wins.
The 28-year-old is now hoping to continue his upward trajectory at Hidden Valley.
“A lot of people that follow would have seen at the start of the year some average results in the race, but we did have some good qualifying in amongst all that, so there was potential there,” De Pasquale said of his start to the 2024 season.
“The DNF and then a DNS as well sort of hurt the spirits a little bit, but then we flipped that around and I think the comeback from that was really good.
“Obviously heading to New Zealand and winning the JR Trophy, two podiums on the back of what was a tough couple of months was really cool and it shows the resilience of the team and obviously how hard everyone is fighting.
“From there it has been quite solid, so we are looking to keep improving and maximising what we can heading to Darwin, which has been good to us in the past.
“I’m super excited to get to the next one and keep building.”
After dropping outside of the top 20 in the title race after the second round, De Pasquale has now climbed back to eighth in the standings, just behind his teammate Will Davison.
He trails championship leader Will Brown by 459 points, but
“I’m not sure if Will and Broc (Feeney) are in our sights, we’ll see. If we get a good run of speed, anything is possible,” De Pasquale said.
“Two rounds ago we were 21st, so we’ll keep chipping away, but getting car speed is key.
“We see that Chaz has had really good car speed the last couple of rounds and he’s firing forward. Once you have got car speed, the other things will generally take care of themselves 90 per cent of the time.
“But at the same time, the championship is just so tight, if you miss the window by a little bit, you really pay a price with results and if you nail it, you get some good ones.”
De Pasquale said the performance of the Fords now was in stark contrast to this time last season when he said the Mustang drivers were in the “biggest battle of your life” each race amid the parity struggle against the Camaros.
“Obviously this time 12 months ago we were all heads down,” De Pasquale said.
“There wasn’t much light at the end of the tunnel for us guys in the Fords at that point last year.
“Now, there have been a few wins and more podiums and everyone has been in contention a little bit more.
“There are still a few things that the category is looking at doing to tick off a few more items, more assurance or accuracy, I’m not too sure.
“But we’re definitely going to racetracks now knowing that we have a chance of getting a trophy whereas this time last year we had no idea what was happening and nine times out of 10 you were just in the biggest battle of your life every race.
“It’s definitely way better and a product of that also the racing is way better and I think it is putting on a better show as well.”
Despite the parity drama, De Pasquale still emerged from the season with a victory in Townsville and a third-place podium finish at the Bathurst 1000.
“Without a couple of really good results in there it would have been really tough because it’s not a good feeling knowing you don’t have much of a chance,” De Pasquale said.
“You want to go to the track and know if you do your job correctly and you work well and the team does their job and everyone performs really well, you have a chance.
“Whether you get it or not, you like it to be in your control. So a lot of last year felt like it was out of our control, but this year so far we feel like if we perform at our best we are in for a shot.”
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