TOP TEAM BOSS TO JOIN SUPERCARS

Adrian Burgess set to join Supercars – Photo: LAT

Championship-winning team boss Adrian Burgess is set to join Supercars in a senior administrative role.

AA EXCLUSIVE By MARK FOGARTY

AUTO ACTION has learned that Burgess, who this year took over the running of Tekno Autosport’s solo entry, is the prime candidate to replace sporting and technical director David Stuart.

His appointment, due to be announced as soon as tomorrow (Thursday), is awaiting formal final approval by the Supercars board of directors and finalisation of his contract.

Supercars chief executive Sean Seamer confirmed that Stuart’s replacement had been chosen.

“We’re a week late, but we’ll be announcing that next week,” Seamer told AA at the Gold Coast 600 last Friday. “We have someone. I’m just waiting for final approval.”

AA understands Burgess has been in talks to join Supercars in a senior sporting and technical position since before the Bathurst 1000.

He will bring to Supercars more than three decades of top-level international and local experience as a Formula 3 and F1 team manager, and V8 team chief.

It is believed he will take over from Stuart, who is to move to CAMS in a safety related role after four-and-a-half years as Supercars’ racing boss, in a more senior and expanded position.

Gold Coast-based Burgess is expected to have a new over-arching title, gaining extended administrative responsibilities in addition to heading the sporting and technical departments.

Formerly team manager at Stone Brothers Racing, Stuart will leave Supercars at the end of the year after overseeing the aerodynamic homologation testing of the new Ford Mustang racer in December.

UK-born Burgess guided Dick Johnson Racing to the 2010 Supercars drivers’ championship with James Courtney before defecting to Triple Eight Race Engineering, directing Jamie Whincup’s 2011-2013 title treble.

Triple Eight also swept the teams’ championship under his reign.

He switched, controversially, to the Holden Racing Team in 2014, but was unable to arrest the storied squad’s decline, leading to the withdrawal of its quarter-century status as the main Holden factory team at the end of 2016.

At HRT, Burgess replaced fellow former McLaren F1 senior engineer Steve Hallam, who is believed to have been the other leading candidate for the Supercars sporting and technical director position.

Burgess left Walkinshaw Racing before the Winton round last year, joining Tekno in an advisory capacity from the Sandown 500.

He returned to Supercars team management this season to lead a reorganised Tekno effort with leading rookie Jack Le Brocq in a new Triple Eight customer-spec ZB Commodore, relocating to the Gold Coast.

Burgess was part of the team that took Australia’s David Brabham to victory in the 1989 British F3 championship and the prestigious non-title Macau Grand Prix before joining the McLaren F1 team in ’91, working with the late Ayrton Senna, and Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard.

He took over the running of the top-ranked Carlin team in British F3 in ’99, guiding Takuma Sato and South Africa’s Alan van der Merwe to the ’01 and ’03 titles respectively

He narrowly missed the 2002 British F3 championship with James Courtney, who was handicapped by a severe concussion suffered in a huge late-season F1 testing crash at Monza caused by suspension failure on his Jaguar.

Burgess returned to F1 in 2005 as sporting director of Jordan, which became Midland the following year, before switching to Supercars with DJR in ’07.

His impending move to Supercars senior management raises further questions about the future of Tekno Autosports, which has nominated for next year’s series despite persistent rumours that the Webb family-owned team was looking to sell its entry.

Without strong leadership, top-performing rookie driver Le Brocq may look elsewhere despite being nominally contracted to the single-car team for 2019.

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