MOTORSPORT: Penske pursues Mustang

Billionaire Supercars team owner Roger Penske has reaffirmed his determination to homologate the Ford Mustang for the category and confirmed the key role former Triple Eight chief engineer Ludo Lacroix would play in such a project.

And in a shock twist, Penske revealed Lacroix was not ‘poached’ from Triple Eight last year, but approached his team, DJR Team Penske, for a job.

Lacroix, who had worked with Triple Eight Race Engineering throughout the team’s highly successful 14-year Australian campaign, was stood down by its autocratic chief Roland Dane when it became apparent the Frenchman was on the move to the team that is expected to emerge as T8’s strongest rival.

Dane at the time labelled Lacroix “duplicitous”. Lacroix started at DJR Penske this week.

“Ludo is coming across, we are excited about that,” Penske told motoring.com.au at the Detroit motor show. “He brings lots of experience and we are going to have to build the best team to be the best. And it’s going to take good people and more commitment.

“I didn’t know him at all and he contacted us and said he would have some interest in making a move at the end of the [2016] season.

“We talked to him and he didn’t have a contract and we were able to put together something that was realistic for him and for us.”

Penske made it clear he had no qualms about hiring staff from other Supercars teams, even if it meant upsetting rival owners such as Dane in the process.

“Everyone says we are going to get someone upset. I think from my perspective it’s been such a closed shop down there; you can’t take your car anywhere; you can’t go in a wind tunnel and you can’t try and get better.

“People who don’t have contracts and come to our organisation and want to go to work; if we assess them and they look like they are going to be an advantage for us then I am going to hire them for sure.”

Mustang now eligible for Supercars
DJR Team Penske will race the Ford Falcon FG X in 2017, but Penske again confirmed he wants to replace it with the Mustang coupe, which becomes eligible for the category under new Gen2 regulations that kick off this season.

He said Lacroix’s experience would be crucial for such an endeavour. Lacroix’s aerodynamic skills are highly regarded within the Supercars championship.

“He has a long runway from the standpoint of his technical expertise and obviously the development we could do on a new car if we wanted to do that,” Penske said.

“It would be a good opportunity, but that is something we will have to decide over the next 12 months.”

Ford Australia, which pulled out of Supercar at the end of the 2016 season and ceased local manufacture of the Falcon road car last October, has so far shown no interest in racing the Mustang and Penske has focussed his lobbying efforts on Ford in the USA, for whom his team races in NASCAR.

He said there had been no “formal conversations” about Mustang, only “casual conversations”.

“The question is longer term is there a chance to take the Mustang and do something with it? That’s me talking, not Ford. I don’t want to put any one in the position of me saying something that nobody knows.

“Just something we would like to do if we can.”

While DJR Team Penske has yet to achieve significant success in Supercars, Penske said that wouldn’t stop him from pitching the Mustang proposal to Ford.

“We have won races for them here in the US, we almost won the [NASCAR] championship.

“I don’t think it’s about all what we have today, I think it’s about who you are from an organisational standpoint and what kind of capability and what kind of commitment you will make long-term.

“We are certainly an organisation that wants to take care of our sponsors, but also give back to manufacturers what they give us.”

Entering its third season, DJR Team Penske will run two Shell-backed Falcons for Fabian Coulthard and new signing Scott McLaughlin, who replaces Walkinshaw Racing-bound Scott Pye.

“We need to win a race and not just be competitive off and on,” Penske said. “We need to have some long-term stability and that is what we are aiming for.

“I think we have learned a lot, and the question obviously is if we have anything to beat Triple Eight, because they have been so strong. I think you have to give them a lot of credit for what they have put together.”

Tripe Eight, which becomes the Red Bull Holden Racing Team in 2017, has claimed seven drivers’ championships, six Bathurst 1000s and eight teams’ championships.

In 2016 Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup finished one-two in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.