Red Bull Racing Australia’s roller-coaster weekend at Symmons Plains has come in the first V8 Supercars Championship event since Roland Dane elected to step out of the team’s ‘performance personnel’ line-up.
Each multi-car team is allowed to dedicate just seven “performance related personnel” to each car at V8 Supercars’ non-Pirtek Enduro Cup events.
The regulations state that “a person will be deemed to have contributed to the performance of a car if they work on the car or they in any way review or interpret the data derived from the car.”
Dane says that the move is unrelated to the recent changes that saw Mark Dutton promoted to team manager in January and was not planned pre-season.
“I’ve stepped back from any active role in the running of the performance side of the race team,” Dane confirmed to Speedcafe.com.
“I decided after Clipsal that I didn’t think I was doing enough and I had too many other distractions as well.
Buy tickets
“I thought the team would operate better if I allowed somebody else to step up.
“I’ll leave the performance side of it to the engineers.”
Dane’s move to classify himself as purely a team owner ensures that Red Bull’s track engineering line-up has been bolstered by the highly experienced Ken Douglas.
Douglas has been an engineering consultant to Triple Eight for several seasons, assisting the team with race strategy at the non-personnel restricted endurance events.
“He brings extra engineering input at a level that I can’t do and strengthens the team,” said Dane of Douglas.
Dane added that he still expects to attend “most” events throughout the season.
“There are other aspects of management and ownership that are unaffected (by the change).”
