On the finish of June 2024, an possibility lapsed that will have in any other case tied rising star Kai Allen to Dick Johnson Racing. On the time, Allen was the defending Super2 champion, and he went on to take third within the collection and likewise raced at Sandown and Bathurst for DJR as an endurance co-driver, alongside Will Davison.
What was unusual about this relationship, nevertheless, was what occurred subsequent. It was confirmed that Allen would transfer to affix rival Ford staff Grove Racing for 2025, and he did so with the vocal blessing of DJR administration.
“He is heading to an ideal staff the place they know how you can win and he’ll do an ideal job there,” DJR co-owner Ryan Story mentioned in an announcement. “[We are] very excited and comfortable for him.”
On the time, it seemed to be a case of the timing simply not figuring out. What was much less identified – and definitely much less public – was that when DJR launched Allen, staff administration was working laborious on securing not solely 2023 Supercars champion Brodie Kostecki, but additionally the engineering corps he’d labored with at Erebus Motorsport and Bathurst 1000 profitable co-driver, Todd Hazelwood.
It was fairly comprehensible that, with such an enormous change incoming, DJR administration would prioritise stability on the opposite aspect of the storage, within the form of Davison. In any case, since becoming a member of the staff in 2021, the third-generation driver has by no means completed the championship exterior the highest 10.
So it was that 19-year-old Allen began his season alongside Matt Payne who, at 22, gave Grove a driver lineup that had a mixed age that was, within the phrases of 1 crusty pitlane observer, “youthful than a few of Fernando Alonso’s racesuits.”
Kai Allen, Broc Feeney and Matthew Payne on the rostrum in Darwin
Photograph by: Edge Photographics
However whereas Broc Feeney was toying with the opposition to brush the three Hidden Valley races, Allen was the person planting a flag of his personal within the Darwin soil.
His third place in one in all Saturday’s dash races was spectacular sufficient however, on Sunday, the best way he dealt with the a number of challenges of qualifying, a single-car high 10 shoot out after which managed his automobile’s tempo and tyres to select off second place – every week earlier than his twentieth birthday – provoked comprehensible acclaim from most within the pitlane.
Higher but, the motive force he handed for second within the closing laps was team-mate Payne, who joined Allen and Feeney (who, it’s generally simple to neglect, is simply 22) in forming the youngest podium within the historical past of Supercars/Touring Automobiles down beneath.
All because of this Allen has vaulted himself to twelfth within the drivers’ championship, only one spot behind one other rising star, Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Ryan Wooden. With Payne closing in on second place after his fourth 200 point-plus spherical in succession, it might effectively be that Grove might lock each its drivers into Supercars’ new-for-2025 finals system, which takes impact after the Bathurst 1000 in October.
One of many drivers who might be pushing to shut the space to Allen and earn a spot among the many high 10 is Davison. The veteran left Darwin seventeenth within the factors, 113 behind Allen, and he and DJR would remember that yet one more unhealthy spherical might finish his finals ambitions.
Staff administration not too long ago confirmed that Davison has a contract in place for 2026, in response to the questions that inevitably come a few 42-year-old racing driver operating within the mid-field.
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It seems to be unlikely there might be any such queries directed at Grove – probably for a decade.
A yr on from these variety parting phrases from DJR, it might effectively be that with Allen, the Melbourne staff have pulled off its second driver coup of the final three years.
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