WALKINSHAW AND BURGESS PART WAYS
By Bruce Williams
Date posted: 12 May 2017
Changes ahead for Walkinshaw Racing – Photo: Daniel Kalisz/LAT
Walkinshaw Racing has made changes, with team manager Adrian Burgess departing the Mobil 1 HSV Racing Team with immediate effect.
Burgess, who joined the team at the start of the 2014 season, is believed to have left after discussions with team owner Ryan Walkinshaw earlier this week.
Following the Barbagallo Raceway Supercars races there were suggestions that there would be major changes within the beleaguered team, and AA understands that there could be further changes in the coming days.
AA contacted the team for clarification on Burgess’s status and several other questions, and while it did not address any queries about Burgess, we believe that a statement is imminent.
Adrian Burgess departs Walkinshaw Racing – Photo: LAT
The news comes after a disastrous round in Perth for the team. While teammate Scott Pye started the races from 13th and 12th, Courtney was 24th and 20th in the two Qualifying sessions, and while he looked to be on-course for a decent 14th place in Race 8, he was forced to pit late in the race to take on fuel in an unplanned stop.
Following the multi-car pileup at Symmons Plains, in which both Courtney and Pye were involved, the 2010 champion has been racing the team’s spare chassis – the same car with which Garth Tander met with little success last year.
The former HRT driver switched to a new chassis at Sydney Motorsport Park and was immediately more competitive, and he and co-driver Warren Luff took a comfortable win at the Sandown 500 in September.
At the same time, Tander voiced concerns about the car he had just vacated – which initially suffered damage when Luff crashed, along with Craig Lowndes, at Bathurst in 2014.
AA understands that following comments his about the car Tander was castigated by the team, the management voicing concerns not so much about the veracity of his comments but the potential effect they might have had on the value of the chassis when it eventually appears on the second-hand market.
After the car was rebuilt it returned to service with HRT in 2015, and Tander and Luff drove it in the three Pirtek Enduro Cup events. The pair won the ‘overall’ title, but Tander commented at the time that the balance of the car was not the same as that of the car of teammate Courtney – describing it at one stage as “weird”.
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