Team 18 has in recent weeks signed Supercars’ Senior Computer Aided Design Engineer, Scott Campbell, and Programming and Data Engineer, Bea Vear.
Vear has already left the building at Supercars following the Perth Super440 to take up a data engineering role at the Melbourne-based squad.
Campbell, who is understood to have sought a move to Melbourne, is still at Supercars for now but will move into a CAD-focused position with Team 18 as it beefs up its capabilities.
Teams poaching its staff is proving a persistent problem for Supercars’ technical department.
The latest recruitments are the work of Team 18 manager Adrian Burgess, who made a controversial move from Supercars’ head of motorsport position to the squad ahead of 2024.
That shift prompted a debate over whether Supercars staff should have enforced gardening leave before transitioning to teams.
It’s understood Vear will not appear trackside with Team 18 until Townsville to minimise angst within the paddock.
Team 18 already has a strong engineering brains trust featuring technical director Geoff Slater, race engineers Richard Hollway and Andrew Donnelly and performance engineer Som Sharma.
Vear takes the data engineer position formerly held by Nicholas Grossi, who has scored a role with the Alpine F1 Team.
Supercars is meanwhile taking the opportunity to reprofile the positions left vacant by Vear and Campbell as it looks to recruit staff.
Campbell’s CAD role will become Senior Engineer, representing a broadening of the position beyond design tasks.
Supercars is also seeking a Performance and Systems Engineer that effectively replaces Vear’s role, albeit with more seniority.
The championship recruited two new data engineers earlier this year.
Its technical department is led by Perry Kapper, who joined in 2025 following a stint as chief engineer and race engineer at Dick Johnson Racing, and engineering manager Hugh Millear.
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