De Pasquale: JR Trophy win after AGP nightmare 'pretty cool'

Anton De Pasquale was "honoured" to win the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy, with the Shell V-Power Racing Team driver banishing the nightmare of the Grand Prix to lead the way in Taupō.

De Pasquale beat Brad Jones Racing driver and Saturday race Andre Heimgartner to win the trophy by just six points, with Sunday winner Will Brown third for the weekend.

For De Pasquale and Dick Johnson Racing, New Zealand was a major turnaround in form after a torrid start to the season, which reached its nadir at the previous event in Melbourne.

De Pasquale qualified on the front row for the first Grand Prix race, but a DNF in the second race (first-lap contact) and DNS in the finale (suspension failure) consigned the #11 Ford to 24th and last overall for the weekend.

Come New Zealand, and both DJR Fords were on the pace, with De Pasquale third behind teammate Will Davison in Saturday's race, before racing to third on Sunday, which was enough to win the Richards Trophy.

De Pasquale became the first Australian driver since Jamie Whincup in 2017 to win the trophy, the first DJR driver since Scott McLaughlin in 2018, and the first to win it in Taupō

Critically, in one weekend, De Pasquale moved from 21st to 12th in the drivers' standings, and is just 84 points from fourth place.

The overall performance wasn't lost on Davison either, who said DJR's rebound was "important" in the team's quest to return to the front of the field on a permanent basis.

"To go from a DNS to winning the next round is pretty cool," he said.

"We got a heap of points this weekend, obviously, we've been struggling at the start of the year to execute in races.

“We’ve qualified in the top 10 in nearly every race after but we haven't had many finishes there so to get a couple of podiums is really cool.

"I know how much it means to everyone and it means a lot to us too. We're very honoured to be able to win it after an awesome weekend at the first race here, which I think was a big success."

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Jason Richards Memorial Trophy winners