MOTORSPORT: Dane slams "duplicitous" tech chief

Duplicitous; that’s the label Triple Eight Race Engineering team boss Roland Dane has today applied to his long-time lieutenant and technical chief, Ludo Lacroix, in the wake of confirmation he will leave the all-conquering Supercars outfit to join DJR Team Penske in 2017.

That shows the hardness of Dane; that he is willing to scold publicly the Frenchman who has been with him since he arrived in Australia (and before that in Europe) and more than any other assisted him in Triple Eight (T8) gaining eight teams’ championship, six drivers’ championship and six Bathurst wins.

But it also shows he is wounded by this ‘betrayal’ by a man he regarded as a friend. Dane always flays those who displease him, but not even former team manager Adrian Burgess received such a public dressing down when he succumbed to big money offer from Ryan Walkinshaw and decamped to the Holden Racing Team.

“I’ve known that Ludo was wanting to leave, feeling he’d leave at the end of the year and have known for some time,” Dane said on the Fox television coverage today at the ITM Auckland SuperSprint.

“Clearly it was news to us this week where he was going, so that was duplicitous, but that’s to be expected in this business somewhere.

“When Adrian [Burgess] left, he was honest about it. Ludo hasn’t been, which is a shame -- but that’s what happens,” Dane stated.

“When you’re at the top of the category, which we have been for a decade, people come and steal people off you. It doesn’t surprise me that someone comes along with more money and they want to spend it,” he said.

Lacroix’s decision to leave is not a total surprise for a number of reasons. Over the years there have been rumours he has looked around for other opportunities and Dane runs a tough – if lucrative – ship and that wears people out. At the same time, DJR Team Penske (DJRTP) is the most ambitious and ruthless rival (with the biggest budget), with which Dane has had to contend. Making itself stronger while making its primary rival weaker is a totally logical play.

But this recruitment surely goes deeper than DJR Team Penske playing the game hard and adding another engineer to its already strong line-up of mechanical minds.

Lacroix is widely regarded as the best aerodynamicist in pitlane. No matter what happens DJRTP will not race the Ford Falcon FG X beyond 2017 and so it will have to play a role in developing a new car to race. The Mustang? Considering Penske’s renowned Ford allegiance, it makes sense.

Lacroix would relish the challenge. Indeed, he is just the man for the job.

The flipside is that Lacroix abandons the T8 ship when it is developing the all-new imported Holden Commodore for Supercars racing form 2018. Former F1 wunderkind Sam Michaels has been drafted in to bolster T8’s tech stocks.

But all that’s in the future…

Back on the racetrack this weekend at Pukekohe, Dane’s two Red Bull drivers Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup begin the final battle for the 2016 drivers’ championship.

Van Gisbergen leads by 148 points and is favoured to resist the undoubtedly concerted and unyielding attack from his team-mate. With 600 points still up for grabs across NZ and the Homebush finale, the third T8 driver Craig Lowndes (who Lacroix has been benched from engineering for the rest of the year), Volvo’s Scott McLaughlin and Tekno Autosport’s Will Davison also remain theoretical chances. But they are likely to be knocked out of contention by the end of the action this weekend at the fast, bumpy and butt-clenching Pukekohe track.

What changes this weekend from recent outings is we are back to single driver races. In fact, it’s a complete revision of mindset, because the four 100km races do not require pit stops which means no double-stacking in pitlane. It will all come down to pure speed, especially in qualifying as Supercars is a category which dictates where you start is almost always vital to where you finish.

This year will also see the fourth running of the Jason Richards Trophy, an award struck to permanently celebrate the memory of the popular New Zealand race driver who died of cancer in 2011. No New Zealander has won it yet. Maybe van Gisbergen, McLaughlin or even DJRTP’s Fabian Coulthard can achieve that feat this weekend in from of thousands of adoring, vocal and pumped up Enzed fans.

>> The ITM Auckland SuperSprint comprises the 24-27th races of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship (VASC). It includes practice on Friday and qualifying and two 100km races on both Saturday and Sunday. A top 10 shootout is held on Sunday.

>> All qualifying and racing will be conducted on the Dunlop hard tyre.

>> There will be no mandatory pit stops in any of the four races. That places massive focus on qualifying speed.

>> The clockwise 2.91km Pukekohe Park Raceway has a top speed of 258km/h. Average speed is 166.6km/h. With mainly right-hand corners the circuit imposes massive challenges on left-hand tyres. Bumps in the frighteningly fast esses place an emphasis on damper tune, yet there are also slow turns that require good drive.

>> David Reynolds owns the qualifying lap record at 1m 02.4690 sec. Craig Lowndes owns the race lap record at 1m 03.2524 sec.

>> Shane van Gisbergen will make his 300th championship race start on Sunday at Pukekohe.

>> Craig Lowndes is winless at Pukekohe. Last year a tyre failure took him out of the lead and into the guard rail. An overnight rebuild had his car back on-track on Sunday.

>> Retired Kiwi champion Greg Murphy has the most wins in Supercar competition at the track with nine, while Jamie Whincup and Scott McLaughlin sit atop the pole position pile with three.

>> Fox Sports will telecast the action live, Channels 10 and ONE will show highlights.

Declaration: Bruce Newton is a paid contributor to the official supercars.com.au website.