DICK Johnson Racing is without Will Davison’s engineer Richard Harris during a hectic Thursday for Supercars teams at Albert Park.
Harris was hospitalised with a stomach bug in the early hours of the morning and will not attend the circuit today as the category tackles two practice sessions, two qualifyings and a race.
Team manager Ben Croke told V8 Sleuth that the engineer, who joined the squad in 2016 and was a key part of its championship successes, is expected to return to duties on Friday.
“Richard was here yesterday; he did the track walk and everything and then came down unwell overnight,” Croke confirmed to V8 Sleuth.
“It got to the point where his roommate said, ‘I can’t deal with this anymore’ and took him to hospital at about four o’clock this morning.
“I’ve been in contact with him all morning, he’s coming right now, so he’ll be back on deck tomorrow.
“(Data engineer) Ed Williams, who was the race engineer for our wildcard, stepped straight into Richard’s shoes and took over for the day.”
Davison will start just 19th in this evening’s opening race of the weekend after a difficult run in the first qualifying session.
He improved to eighth in the second session, two places behind teammate Anton De Pasquale, who’ll start the opener from the front-row.
“We had some good quali pace with car #11 and Will has made steady improvement throughout the day,” added Croke.
“Overall, we’re not too bad, but 19 laps around here is going to be pretty torturous.”
Race 1 is set to get underway at 5:55pm local time.
