THE announcement that double V8 Supercar champion Marcos Ambrose will return to the category has raised the obvious question as to who will be the second driver for the newly reformed Dick Johnson Racing/Penske team in 2015.
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The rumour mill has been surprisingly quiet, although a left-field suggestion during the week was that five-time champion Jamie Whincup would leave Red Bull to form a super team with Ambrose.
It seems fanciful at best but stranger things have happened, even allowing for the fact that Whincup has a contract for next year with Red Bull.
Whincup didn’t endear himself to team boss Roland Dane when he chose to ignore orders to conserve fuel in the closing stages of the Bathurst 1000, and Dane laid the blame squarely at the feet of Whincup for losing the race.
Word is that Whincup didn’t appreciate Dane’s comments and maybe this could be the catalyst for a change of scenery.
It’s not the first time that the relationship between Dane and Whincup has been strained.
When Vodafone was replaced by Red Bull as the team’s major sponsor, Whincup was placed in a very invidious position as he had personal sponsorship with a rival energy drink company and there was an obvious conflict of interest.
In the end, Whincup had to relinquish his sponsorship deal in what it seems was a less than happy arrangement.
With two events to go, Whincup leads the championship by 402 points and with only 600 up for grabs, is well on track to claim a record-breaking sixth title.
Roger Penske is a former successful race driver turned team owner, and the billionaire businessman owns a controlling interest in Dick Johnson Racing.
His team’s success has been outstanding with no fewer than 15 wins by Penske cars in the famed Indianapolis 500 and a long list of successes in Indy cars and NASCAR.
In short, he doesn’t do anything by half measure and it will be his expressed objective to have the best combination of drivers to ensure that they win both the driver and team championships.
Like him or not, Whincup is arguably the best driver in V8 supercars, and if it transpired that he moved to the Penske operation, it would be a massive coup and a case of one-upmanship for the 77-year-old Penske.
The other question to ponder is how well Ambrose will adapt to the new generation cars after eight years of driving on the left on predominantly oval circuits.
The new cars are vastly different from his 2003 and 2004 championship-winning Ford and there are a number of up and coming young guns making a big impression in the category.
Ambrose has always been driven by the next big challenge which is one of the reasons he moved to NASCAR in 2006 and he will see this move as an exciting new challenge.
Let’s not forget that when Ambrose made his V8 Supercar debut at the Australian Grand Prix meeting, he upstaged established drivers to score pole position and you don’t lose that standard of talent.
He will test at the Lakeside circuit in Queensland before his return to V8 competition at the final round of the season in Sydney and much will depend on the quality and speed of the car on this demanding and unforgiving track.
Make no mistake, he will give this new chapter in his career 100 per cent and certainly won’t be making up the numbers.