Mother Energy drinks has re-signed with Jonathon Webb’s Tekno Autosports team as its major sponsor for the 2011 V8 Supercars Championship.
Mother’s parent company Coca Cola Amatil came into V8s in a big way at Townsville last year, securing the exclusive non-alcoholic beverage rights to all V8 Supercars events, plus title sponsorship of Webb’s race car.
With Webb splitting from Dick Johnson Racing at the end of last season to run his own team Tekno Autosports, he has since started a new deal with Mother for 2011 that will include a brand-new livery.
Webb, who won Saturday’s race at the Sydney Telstra 500, said that the he was pleased with the working relationship that he has formed with Mother and Coca Cola.
“Mother is staying on as our major sponsor at a similar capacity to what they were with us last year,” Webb said.
“The sponsorship worked well last year. They were a new brand to the sport as the official energy drink of V8 Supercars, and to be able to tie that in with us has worked really, really well.
“We’ve built a good relationship and now we have some great plans for 2011. The livery will change with a few wild things happening for 2011 – I look forward to presenting all of that.”
Tekno Autosports is expecting to release its 2011 livery on the week leading up to the official V8 Supercars test at Eastern Creek later this month.
While Webb has dissolved all ties with Dick Johnson Racing, he will have a minor link to the squad in 2011 with engines.
Webb will continue to run engines sourced from DJR under its new guise Roger Higgins Engines.
For many years, DJR Engines have been the envy of the V8 Supercars field, producing super competitive power. As part of DJR’s restructure, the engine business has been sold to Roger Higgins who has worked in the DJR engine shop for a number of years.
Higgins will supply V8 Supercars engines to DJR, Webb and others.
Webb says that he is glad to have a known quantity under the hood of his Mother-backed Ford Falcon FG.
“The engine side is the only tie in I still have with that workshop, but as everyone has seen, those engines from that workshop make very good power, based on the speed and horsepower we can get out of them,” he told Speedcafe.com.au.
“He built two fresh engines for my car about a third of the way through last year after I switched from Triple Eight engines to DJR.
“They’re always been very good, well maintained and they have good power. It made sense to continue doing what we’re doing there.”