McVEAN ON THE MOVE TO KELLY RACING

Alistair McVean is on the move to Kelly Racing. Image: Supplied

Top-Rated Supercars engineer Alistair McVean is understood to have joined the exodus from Erebus Motorsport and is on gardening leave ahead of starting with his new Supercars team, Kelly Racing.

By BRUCE NEWTON

McVean’s expected move will only heighten expectation star Erebus driver David Reynolds will also move to the Ford Mustang team.

Reynolds is only one year into a 10 year deal with Erebus but is negotiating an exit from the squad because of relationship issues with team boss Barry Ryan.

Reynolds has been strongly linked to a move to Kelly Racing to replace Rick Kelly, who announced his retirement from full-time Supercars racing last month. If that weren’t to happen, Reynolds is understood to be prepared to stand out of Supercars in 2021.

Reynolds and McVean have worked together at Erebus since 2016, striking up a strong friendship and highly-successful working partnership that included the 2017 Bathurst 1000 victory with Luke Youlden in the co-driver seat.

Reynolds and McVean are not alone in exiting Erebus at the end of a turbulent season.

Rising star Anton De Pasquale has also left to drive for the reformed Dick Johnson Racing, while his engineer Mirko De Rosa is also understood to have moved on.

Former Erebus crew chief Dennis Huijser, who quit during the season, is also expected to join Kelly Racing.

McVean began his Supercars career at Walkinshaw Racing and worked for both the HSV Dealer Team and the Holden Racing Team. He scored three Bathurst wins at the team before being controversially benched as HRT slumped in form during 2016.

McVean was head of engineering at Erebus as well as Reynolds’ engineer. He is regarded as one of the best brains in pitlane, adept at design, race engineering and strategy. He declined to comment when approached by AUTO ACTION.

McVean is the second key engineer revealed by AUTO ACTION to be on the move this week. Grant ‘Shippy’ McPherson, who oversaw Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander’s 2020 Bathurst 1000 win will move south to Walkinshaw Andretti United (WAU) from Triple Eight after completing six months gardening leave.

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