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Shell V-Power Racing Team mastermind Ludo Lacroix says “there is no magic” in the process of getting Anton De Pasquale to the extraordinary level set by Scott McLaughlin in recent years.
Highly rated Lacroix is operating as race engineer on De Pasquale’s #11 Mustang this year.
The former Erebus Motorsport driver experienced a mixed team debut last month at Mount Panorama, topping the opening qualifying session of the year before crashing out of that afternoon’s race.
De Pasquale’s transition to Dick Johnson Racing is among the topics unravelled in a Supercars Life episode scheduled to air on Foxtel Go, Fox Sports 506 and Kayo Sports at 18:30 AEDT tomorrow.
De Pasquale and Will Davison are tasked with taking DJR forward in 2021 following the successes of its former driver pairing McLaughlin/Fabian Coulthard that netted three of the past four titles in each of the drivers’ and teams’ stakes.
Lacroix previously worked closely with McLaughlin and opened up on the qualities he’s observed thus far in De Pasquale.
“He’s got obviously talent, you can see that,” Lacroix says in the episode.
“He’s got willingness – you know, in our business, if you don’t want it enough, it’s not going to happen.
“I think Scotty wanted it but showed it more; Anton is more a cool customer but he definitely wants it. I know that, I can see it.
“I believe Anton is on that path, now it’s down to us, the engineers and the technical side, to deliver him the car that he needs because they don’t drive the same way, they don’t drive the same car, and you have got to adapt to them.
“I want to see a process, an attitude and if the process is there and the attitude is there, the result will be there. There is no magic.”
De Pasquale bounced back from his crash – after which Lacroix is seen consoling his driver – with fourth place in the second leg of the Mount Panorama 500.
The 25-year-old was 16th in Practice 1 before jumping to third in Practice 2 at the Penrite Oil Sandown SuperSprint this morning.
The journeys of Davison and David Reynolds are also featured in the episode, the latter earning a wrap from Kelly Grove Racing boss Todd Kelly.
“This is unbelievable, to get Dave and Al [race engineer Alistair McVean] into a Mustang in our team, we’re laughing because Al ticks all of the boxes in an engineering sense and Dave is a little bit quirky and quite a unique individual as we know, but he’s exactly what we need in one of our cars,” Kelly says.
