The Charlie Schwerkolt-owned Team 18 has been on the rise in recent events, with spearhead Anton De Pasquale scoring top five finishes across Hidden Valley, Townsville and Ipswich.
That has coincided with Team 18’s transition to Chevrolet homologation squad and ex-Triple Eight technical director Moore’s move to a new role at GM.
While Moore has begun duties at GM, the tech guru’s contract release from Triple Eight prevents him from attending Supercars events or visiting Supercars team workshops.
Burgess took umbrage at comments on the Ipswich TV broadcast that his team’s improved form is the result of information from Triple Eight or Moore.
The Englishman joined Team 18 at the start of 2024 and has built a strong engineering team led by technical director Geoff Slater.
Team 18 had been set up as a Triple Eight customer squad in 2016 but opted to complete the build of its Gen3 cars in-house and is not among the Brisbane outfit’s data customers.
“The progression you’re seeing is only from Team 18 and the work that my guys are putting in,” Burgess told Speedcafe.
“We opted to be independent two years ago and really, this is how long it takes to develop the philosophies that you need to use and harness them with the drivers that you’ve got.
“We’ve expanded our engineering group this year and we’ve brought in a good talent, and he’s developed a great relationship with Anton, and we’re definitely making progress on that car.”
The “good talent” Burgess refers to is Andrew Donnelly, who joined Team 18 this year from Brad Jones Racing – a squad that is among Triple Eight’s current list of customers.
While acknowledging Donnelly has provided a boost, Burgess doubled down on the fact Moore remains at arms-length.
“There hasn’t been any external influence yet,” Burgess continued, speaking ahead of a recent trip to the United States with GM.
“We haven’t really had any input from JJ (Moore) yet, because he’s working through his exit strategy from T8, and we have to respect that.
“He can’t come to the tracks, he doesn’t visit our factory, so we haven’t really had too much [interaction].
“We haven’t been given anything or nor would we ask for anything that the blokes down the road are doing.”
Speedcafe understands Moore was involved in Team 18’s US trip post-Ipswich, albeit the engineer’s primary purpose was a fact-finding mission for his own future in the country.
Burgess affirmed Moore will be utilised by Team 18 when it represents GM during Supercars’ wind tunnel testing program in December.
The squad is currently preparing its spare Camaro that will be sea-freighted to the US alongside a Triple Eight Ford Mustang and Walkinshaw Andretti United Toyota Supra in late September.
Meanwhile, Burgess believes the key to Team 18’s recent results has been arriving at events with a more competitive package.
“We have started to roll out of the truck in a more competitive state each Friday. The work that guys are doing in the factory has meant we’re rolling out in a stronger position,” he said.
“We’re not taking an axe to the car every Friday night like we used to, we’re just tuning small stuff instead of big, wholesale changes. It takes time to generate that.”
Team 18 will be back on track at Winton on Thursday running an evaluation day for De Pasquale’s co-driver rookie Harri Jones.
Erebus Motorsport is also taking to the Victorian venue, utilising the evaluation day rules to give Jarrod Hughes and Jobe Stewart laps ahead of The Bend 500 on September 12-14.
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