V8 Supercars team owner Paul Morris says that little will change in his race team after news that his Holden squad will not enter a joint venture with Triple Eight Race Engineering.
Morris and Triple Eight owner Roland Dane were investigating the possibility of amalgamating its teams, forming a four-car ‘super team’ to run out of Dane’s Queensland race shop.
Dane confirmed to Speedcafe.com yesterday that the super team plans had been scrapped. CLICK HERE for yesterday’s breaking story.
Morris, owner of Paul Morris Motorsport which fields two cars for Russell Ingall (Supercheap Auto) and Steve Owen (VIP Petfoods), confirmed that Dane and Morris will continue their technical partnership next year.
“It’s just business as usual. Nothing changes here at all for this year or next year,” Morris told Speedcafe.com.
“If we wanted to do it (joint venture), we’d do it, but we don’t want to yet.
“The alliance is still strong, it’s just about using all of our resources between us the best way we can.”
After looking closely at a joint venture, Morris said that they may consider running their four cars together in 2013, but wasn’t completely sold on the idea.
“No one has ever done it properly yet,” Morris said.
“Have a look at Hendricks Motorsport in NASCAR. They have four cars but it’s two separate shops. Then you go to Roush and they have a similar deal.
“For us, it’s not much different – our cars are here, his cars are there and it’s all the same equipment.
“We’ll keep the same cars. We’ve got another one spare, but we are doing a lot of machining for Roland’s team, most of the stuff coming out of our machine shop is for all four cars.
“And with Car of the Future coming on, they’ll be a fair bit of stuff to build for that.”
With team structure now set to remain unchanged, driver and sponsors are the next big box for Morris to tick, although he says he will not rush into it.
“I’m not too stressed about that. Supercheap and Russell need to work out what they want to do, then we’ll work out if we want to be involved in it,” Morris said.
“Nothing is going to change from what we are doing. We’re doing the best job we can with what we’ve got.”
