MOTORSPORT: Delay on Penske V8 Supercar move

There won’t be any Penske takeover of, or even tie-up with, Dick Johnson Racing this month, but a deal remains a possibility.

Any Penske entry to V8 Supercar racing now appears more likely to be in 2016 than next season.

And Marcos Ambrose, the dual V8 Supercar champion who has driven in America’s NASCAR for almost a decade, is still part of the Penske picture if it gets into Australian racing.

Penske wants a deal with a manufacturer – and it is this author’s understanding that it wants to be that manufacturer’s number one team in V8 Supercars.

It would seem that Penske’s first preference is to go with Ford, with which it races in NASCAR. However, Ford’s woes in Australia may make finding the budget here beyond reach – even with an outfit as renowned worldwide as Penske.

Unless perhaps the Ford parent company in the US contributes to a campaign in the next era of V8 Supercar racing – now in the melting pot – with its Mustang, which is to go on sale in Australia from next year.

If no deal can be struck with the Blue Oval, the giant Penske organisation – headed by 77-year-old Roger 'The Captain' Penske – has connections with about 40 other car brands. In IndyCar racing it is with General Motors Chevrolet engines, it won NASCAR’s 2012 Sprint Cup with Dodge, and one of its most glorious feats was its domination of Indy racing in 1993 with Mercedes-Benz power.

If it does not tie up with DJR it could do so with virtually any other team in the V8 Supercar field (including those at the front of the field) or, especially if its entry were to be in 2016, bring in a new manufacturer partner in an all-new team.

Three Racing Entitlement Contracts (effectively franchises to compete in V8 Supercars) are up for tender now. The new New Zealand entity Super Black Racing is a contender for one of them, leaving two others if Penske wanted to start a completely new operation.

However, Penske – and particularly his main racing lieutenant Tim Cindric – have invested considerable time examing DJR – Australia’s oldest touring car team, still fronted by 69-year-old legendary former driver, Dick Johnson.

Although DJR has persistently been on the financial ropes in recent years, and last week copped another blow with the departure of highly-regarded technical chief Campbell Little after just eight months, Cindric has praised DJR as a “very capable” and “very resilient” outfit.

Cindric spent five days at DJR in June and has told the V8 Supercars website that “there was nothing within that organisation that turned us off”.

He said a Penske-DJR alliance was still “possible” and intimated that was still the preference. Ford funding may be the stumbling block there, as much as some at the company’s Australian headquarters might love to be represented by the super-successful squad on racetracks.

Ambrose’s availability may be another factor. He may yet have another season in him in NASCAR, where he drives for a lesser Ford team headed by Richard 'The King' Petty, winner of 200 races as a driver but – like Johnson – nowhere near as successful purely as a team operator.

Cindric said of Ambrose: “If we have a picture develop there [Australia] we would certainly like him to be part of it. But the driver perspective would be something that comes secondary to a lot of other things.”

Cindric said a Penske entry to V8 Supercar racing next year now looked “difficult, but not impossible”.

The Americans had wanted to decide on an Australian racing activity by the end of this month, but Cindric admitted that would not happen.

Apart from Roger Penske’s love of motor racing, he has seen V8 Supercar racing as a way to promote his extensive trucking interests in Australia.

Cindric said there was no firm deadline on a decision.

"We have had a lot shorter timelines on other programs,” he said in regard to a 2015 start.

"We are continuing to try to find out if there is a path there that we can look at and say, ‘Hey, this makes sense’. It is still our goal and our vision to try to figure it out.

"We are still very interested in V8 Supercars. It’s something we hope we are able to do at some point, whether it is 2015 or 2016.

"Right now we would have thought we would have been able to put together a program, but the facts are we don’t have one from a sponsorship side or manufacturer support.

"So I would say we are still doing our diligence and hoping we are able to put something together at some point."

Little’s recent departure from DJR, because of the team’s budgetary restraints, has prompted some speculation that he could head an all-new Penske V8 Supercar program.

Cindric has downplayed that prospect while saying the pair were strong friends.