Marcos Ambrose will make no decision about his racing future until after the completion of the PIRTEK Enduro Cup, in which he will share the DJR Team Penske Ford Falcon FG X with Scott Pye.
But whichever way his decision goes, Ambrose is confident the rapidly improving team can threaten for victory in the endurance classics.
The 2003-04 V8 Supercars Champion, who returned to Australia this year after 10 years racing in the USA, made the shock decision to make way for Pye in the driver’s seat after just two events as he struggled to acclimatise to the car.
Since then he has tested as a co-driver in Darwin and is also expected to take part in the extended co-driver sessions at Ipswich and Sydney Motorsport Park leading into the opening enduro, the Wilson Security Sandown 500 on September 11-13.
Speculation has been constant about Ambrose’s future since he stepped back. There were doubts he would even drive in the endurance races this year, let alone return to the driver’s seat full-time in 2016 to fulfil the second year of his contract.
There have been plenty of driver’s linked to a Penske seat in 2016 in anticipation that Ambrose won’t be around.
But at last weekend’s Castrol EDGE Townsville 400, where he was acting in his normal supporting role to Pye, Ambrose was adamant he would complete Sandown, the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 and the Castrol Gold Coast 600 before he and the team made a call on his future.
“I am not going to make any call on anything because it is not fair on anyone,” he said. “I have to get a chance to get back in the car and support Scott and the team in the endurance role and have a shot to try and win those races,” Ambrose told v8supercars.com.au.
“We will look at everything once we get through the endurance races and make a timely decision for everybody. And it’s not just me making the choice either, it’s whether the team wants to put me back in the car as well.
“So there is a lot going on there and we will just work through the issues as they come.”
Ambrose sees the endurance races as a chance to establish just whether he can be competitive in the FG X. He has cited a number of reasons for his struggles including a lack of testing time, limited tyre availability, the change in the cars since he last raced here and DJR Team Penske running a single car.
“When you are a single car team coming back in you don’t have a reference and now I will be able to gauge myself against how Scott is going in the car,” Ambrose said.
“Same time of the day, same conditions and that is what is so important. So for me that is going to help me no end to be able to have Scott as a reference just to gauge my own feel for the car and my own performance in the car and we will just go from there.”
Over recent events Pye has scored a series of top 10 finishes as the team has come to grips with the FG X. That has clearly given Ambrose a boost of confidence for the enduros as he chases that first Bathurst win.
“We are going to do the endurance races and I will support Scott as a co-driver and we have a really great shot to win all of them – although one of them would do.
“We have got a great driver line-up and our team has really come on-line now to be competitive week in and week out.
Despite the swirl of controversy that has surrounded his decision to hand over to Pye, the 38-year old Tasmanian remains resolute he made the right call.
“People just didn’t understand it at the time, a lot of people still don’t, but I think it was the right choice for me personally,” he said. “It gives me the chance to reset the clock and work this sport out a little bit and see what role I want to play in it.
“I am really happy with the choices I have gone through personally. Stepping out of the car wasn’t easy but it was the right decision for me personally and it was the right thing for the team I believe as well in terms of moving forward as a company.
“The biggest thing on my mind when I stepped back was to support the team as best I could even though I was letting them down by stepping out of the car. I have tried to do that the best I can, by coming to the races, by being a good teammate to Scott … and just be here for the support of the team and to meet sponsors and stuff.
“So it’s not been an easy road for me personally to come to the race track and not be in the race car but it’s for the greater good and I feel good about the choice I have made, so far.”
Ambrose, who is well known for his aversion to publicity and hype and determination to preserve his privacy, admitted the coverage of his return and decision to step out of the car had been unsettling.
“I want to enjoy my racing and I certainly don’t want to be in the tabloids week in and week out. That’s not what I come back for.
“It’s just a very difficult thing to come back to because just the opportunity to learn without being on the front page of every national newspaper is just impossible. So I didn’t want to be that guy everyone is looking at because he is running 25th and they don’t understand that you have no practice time in the car, you don’t have any tyres to practice on even when you get there.
“So I just didn’t want to be that guy, I didn’t want to let the team down that way.
“So when I came down and saw the landscape and what I was facing, for me it became untenable to keep going the way I was.”
DJR Team Penske is holding its annual Open Day at its Stapylton workshop on Sunday July 26 – stay tuned for more information.
