TEAM 18 has doubled down on its push towards standalone status, ending its technical alliance with Triple Eight Race Engineering.
Having beefed up its Triple Eight relationship ahead of the 2019 season, the Mount Waverley squad has increasingly been heading down the independent path in the past 12 months.
First it took its troublesome power steering system in-house, then it opted to assemble its own Gen3 cars once it took delivery of two chassis from Triple Eight.
Now it’s blazing its own trail when it comes to set-up and performance.
Team manager Bruin Beasley accepts there is some risk that comes with the move – but it’s a gamble worth taking as it entrusts its engineering department led by the likes of Richard Hollway and Manuel Sanchez.
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“It was still something we were talking about until recently and obviously there’s pros and cons for everything,” Beasley told V8 Sleuth.
“Us as a group now, we thought it was better to go our own way a little bit with a new-generation car and building it in-house ourselves and to be fair, they’re a little bit more customer-spec cars, aren’t they? So it was a good opportunity for us to do that.
“It’s a risk, we know that, but sometimes you have just got to put your big boy pants on and have a crack.”
While insights into the workings of Triple Eight, arguably the best in the business, are valuable, there is a general school of thought that it’s hard to reach the very top in motorsport as a customer team.
“To be perfectly upfront and fair they have been very good, there has never been any secret stuff,” Beasley said of Triple Eight.
“Anything that has been promised to us has been delivered, there’s not an issue with any of that.
“But our drivers are happy with the idea of doing it ourselves and doing our own thing rather than following. We’re trying to lay our own path.
“I suppose when you have got that situation and you tie yourself into following what they do because it works for them… at least now we can make some decisions that we believe might be better for us.
“Now ultimately it is to be seen if that’s going to be the case but I think at least now as a group we’re all on the same page and going in the same direction.
“We’re following less and setting our own path.”
Team 18 completed its pre-season testing program yesterday with both Mark Winterbottom and Scott Pye’s Camaros running at Winton Motor Raceway.
