MOTORSPORT: New turmoil at DJR

Money issues surface again at V8 Supercar’s oldest team
Australia’s longest-running touring car/V8 Supercar team, Dick Johnson Racing, is in turmoil again as it awaits word on whether iconic American team owner Roger Penske will take it over.

DJR sporting director Campbell Little (pictured) has departed the team after barely half a season.

The team and the well-credentialed and highly-regarded Little have both said the reason was budgetary – that is, that DJR can’t afford to retain him.

However, Dick Johnson – the 69-year-old former champion driver and folk hero whose team has listed from one crisis to another for years, yet survived all and won a national title four years ago and two races last season – has dismissed Little’s departure as “a minor bump”.

Just eight months after recruiting Little, saying he was “without doubt the man for the job” of rebuilding his Ford team to its former glory and that he had spent a long time convincing Little to join the team, Johnson said today after news of the engineer’s exit broke: “We are trucking on as we have in the past. Like every business, the level of operation depends on the finances available.

“We are always looking at ways of trying to save money yet operate at the highest level.

“This is a case of making sure, from this point on, we don’t get ourselves into any strife like we have in the past.”

While Little’s services may be sought elsewhere in the V8 Supercar paddock, he has talked of opportunities in Porsche and GT racing in the immediate future.

He previously worked with Stone Brothers Racing in its days as a top team with Marcos Ambrose in the driver’s seat, Roland Dane’s Triple Eight Race Engineering (before its dominance with Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes) and Ford Performance Racing, as well as a short stint with the V8 Supercar organisation as a technical official.

He lamented leaving “a job half done” at DJR but said “the financial reality is the financial reality”.

“If you don’t have the tools and the resources that you need to do the job you feel like your time can be better spent elsewhere,” Little told website speedcafe.com.

When he took on the role at DJR, from whose Queensland workshop he largely operated in his final days at Ford factory team FPR, Little had said: “Effectively they’ve thrown me the tool kit, all the toys, and said, ‘You figure it out’.”

He also said at that time: “Obviously everything is dependent on the money and the drivers you can get ... they’ve brought me in as the corner of the jigsaw puzzle to build that up”.

DJR said in a statement today, released (although not posted on its website) before Johnson spoke to V8supercars.com.au, that Little “does not lack the ability or ambition to drive us forward”.

“The outcome here is not the desired one, but at the end of the day we are a small team in a very tough financial market and climate, no different to any other team in pit lane,” it said.

“The FPR-DJR technical alliance is strong and, with our existing engineering group stepping up as well, we are confident of continuing our improving results.”

DJR’s young drivers Scott Pye and David Wall are 15th and 21st among the 25 in the V8 Supercar Championship this season.

The team will test at Queensland Raceway on Wednesday ahead of the next championship round there, the Ipswich 400, on the first weekend of August.   
Between those outings it will hold its annual open day for fans at its Stapylton workshop on Sunday, July 27 – by which time something may have been heard, for better or worse, on whether Penske will be taking over DJR.

In an obvious shot at departing telecaster the Seven Network, Warburton told Fairfax Media’s  Sun-Herald last weekend that “we’re really looking forward to being well promoted ... we’re actually looking forward to being part of a network [Fox] that wants to be part of it”.

While Fox undoubtedly is looking forward to having V8 Supercars live, an item this week in the Rear Window column of the Financial Review, another Fairfax Media publication, indicated that all is not roses with Fox’s existing portfolio of sports.

“The abacus at Fox Sports isn't looking any happier for its colourful boss Patrick Delany,” Rear Window commented.

“As he told a recent town hall-style meeting of his staff, his Monday Night Football [rugby league] audiences are down a whopping 30 per cent ...

“He also told gathered staff that A-League ratings are down 10 per cent and Super Rugby ain't too pretty either.

“Neither have their AFL games [and dedicated channel] converted to the kind of Foxtel subscriptions that had been confidently predicted.”

While pricing has not yet been announced for watching V8 Supercars on the pay service in coming years, Fox will be hoping they can be a bigger winner for it than ball sports.

That move will avert protests against any team winning with FRIC, which has been around for six years but in its most refined state now was deemed by the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) F1 race director Charlie Whiting to be a moveable aerodynamic aid and thus illegal.

The systems have helped control the pitch of F1 cars under braking to maintain ride heights. Mercedes, which has won eight of the nine GPs so far this season, may be the biggest loser from the dropping of FRIC, although it has been so dominant it may yet remain well ahead.

Australia’s Red Bull Racing F1 star Daniel Ricciardo, winner of the Canadian GP last month, said that “the thought [that Mercedes will be most affected] is nice ... that maybe Mercedes had a really trick system and will lose out more than us”.

“[But] I don’t think it’s going to be a change that will cost a second in lap time,” Ricciardo said.

“I think it will be a tenth or two-tenths.”

Others have estimated the loss may be about 0.4 seconds a lap.

Ferrari veteran Fernando Alonso said it would be “like changing from soft to medium tyres”.