LONG-TIME Tickford Racing engineer Nathaniel Osborne has made the call to move on from motorsport.
Osborne first started working with the team as an intern in 2005 and since 2015 has been the Chief Engineer of the Melbourne-based Ford squad.
This year he moved into a role as GM of Business Development and Engineering but will finish up with Tickford Racing next week after the VALO Adelaide 500 to move into a job in research and development in the defence industry.
Osborne spent four years at the team – when it was known as Ford Performance Racing – from 2005 to 2008 as an intern before spending two years working at Ford Australia.
He re-joined FPR in 2011 and became Data Engineer on Will Davison’s Tradingpost Falcon for the next two seasons before moving into a race engineering role on David Reynolds’ #55 The Bottle-O Falcon across 2013 and 2014.
Osborne engineered Reynolds to his breakthrough Supercars race win at the 2013 Gold Coast 600 and became the Ford squad’s Chief Engineer from 2015 onwards, the year it homologated the last Falcon Supercar – the FG X – that went on to win that year’s championship with Mark Winterbottom at the wheel.
That particular championship-winning car has recently been placed up for sale by Tickford Racing with an asking price of $800,000.
Osborne made a winning return to race engineering last year in Townsville as a ‘super sub’ where he stood in for Cam Waters’ regular engineer Sam Potter who was absent due to surgery. Waters went on to win two of the three races at the North Queensland event.
“While being in the motorsport industry I’ve worked with many talented individuals,” Osborne told V8 Sleuth this week.
“Through these collaborations I’ve been fortunate to be part of some significant achievements that will always be part of the team’s history.
“The highlight no doubt was designing and homologating the FG X, the last Falcon. To win in its debut season was probably my biggest achievement.
“It’s just time for a change though.”
Tickford Racing is competing this weekend in the VALO Adelaide 500 with its four-car Mustang team of Waters, James Courtney, Jake Kostecki and Thomas Randle.
It confirmed this week that two of its current Mustangs will run in next year’s Dunlop Super2 Series driven by Brad Vaughan and Elly Morrow.
