Respected international engineer Jeromy Moore believes his former Supercar team Triple Eight Race Engineering just needs to “dig in” to regain its status as the benchmark Supercars operation.
Moore left Triple Eight in 2015 to join Porsche Motorsport, helping the German marque to LMP1 manufacturers’ and drivers’ championships and victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2016 and 2017.
When Porsche closed its LMP1 program, he was appointed Technical Manager on the new Porsche 911 RSR GTE car, which was unveiled at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on the Michelin Supercar stand earlier this month.
Moore keeps a close eye on the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship and is in regular contact with the Triple Eight team which he has described as his “second family”.
The Banyo-based team continued to dominate the championship until DJR Team Penske (DJRTP) found form in 2017, when it bagged its first major title of its joint venture era by wresting the teams’ championship from Triple Eight.
“In terms of the dominance of Penske team, the DJR Penske team, I mean I haven’t been into huge detail with the guys back there,” Moore told Speedcafe.com.
“I’m sure the twin-spring, which we started running in 2008 up until the end of last year, has a big effect on the team, so I can’t say from this far away if it’s all the spring or all the aero of the Mustang.
“I know that Penske is a big company, they have a lot of resources, they’ve done a good job.
‘You also have the (Scott) McLaughlin factor, who is obviously very good.
“I think Triple Eight, if they want to get back to the front, they just need to dig in and do some improvements to the car.”
While Triple Eight won back the teams’ championship last year, and the drivers’ championship went down to the final race in Newcastle, DJRTP has a stranglehold on the current season.
That dominance has coincided with the introduction of the Ford Mustang, which Moore believes was always going to present a challenge with respect to parity due to the nature of the road car and the challenge of adapting the shape to Supercars’ control chassis.
“I think it was always going to be a difficult period bringing in this Mustang, where it deviates quite a lot from the standard Australian production car to fit to make it fit the car of the future chassis,” reasoned Moore.
“I think Supercars, particularly the (new technical) department of Adrian (Burgess) and Campbell (Little), are doing the right thing now to bring everything back in line.
“The series is at a bit of a turning point, and I think they’re turning back in the right direction now, reacting quickly to bring the aero changes back.
“Even the centre of gravity is something that should’ve been done a while ago.”
Moore is now preparing for the racing debut of the 911 RSR at the 2019/20 World Endurance Championship opener at Silverstone on August 30-September 1, after which he will be in a position to decide on what his next career move will be.
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