![]() ![]() There’s no doubt fiddling with a successful formula can cause success to go from expected to elusive, like it did for Whincup in 2015. Logistics have inevitably become less wieldy. Engineers have swapped, mechanics have been reallocated, more staff hired, more cars and parts built – including for T8’s growing band of customers. He’s the young gun, the next big thing and the two established T8 drivers will simply be targets for him to beat.Īlong with that very visible management issue comes a rearrangement of the backroom line-up. ![]() Whincup and Lowndes have got on as well and as co-operatively as motorsport team-mates could, but van Gisbergen will change that dynamic seismically. ![]() Now Dane has junked that and thrown a hairy, oppy-locking, tyre-smoking grenade into the mix. The two-car model and two drivers – Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes – have delivered T8 (in its guises as both Team Vodafone and Red Bull Racing) six drivers’ championships, seven teams’ championships and six Bathurst 1000 victories in the past 10 years. Other teams run three or even four cars, but T8 is the operation that has dominated Australia’s most popular, most professional, hardest fought and highest profile motorsport category for a decade. “It is a fairly unique set of circumstances.” “I like the concept of two cars and … the only reason we are running three cars is because we are in a position where we want to carry on running Craig as long as possible and as long he wants to,” he told Wheels. They joined up in 2005 before T8 was a powerhouse when the safe bet would have been for Lowndes to stay with Ford Performance Racing.Įven Dane acknowledges the risks he is taking. The owner of Triple Eight Race Engineering did as you would expect of a merciless motorsport mogul when he secretly signed Shane van Gisbergen in 2014 to a three-year deal that starts at this year’s V8 Supercars championship opener, the Clipsal 500 on March 5-6.ĭane identified the ludicrously talented Kiwi as the next big thing in V8 racing and decided he had to have him in a Red Bull Racing Holden Commodore VF, even though it meant poaching him from his own customer, Tekno Autosports.īut instead of simply announcing van Gisbergen as Jamie Whincup’s new teammate and replacement for the now 41-year-old Craig Lowndes, Dane chose instead to expand to three cars, slotting the veteran into a third entry sponsored by Caltex Vortex.Īt least in part, Dane is doing this because he feels an obligation to Lowndes. ROLAND Dane is going to have to be careful or his reputation as a hard-nosed prick is going to end up in tatters. ![]()
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