LOCKWOOD Racing team boss Brad Jones says he wants to keep Fabian Coulthard for 2013, despite the Kiwi being the latest driver linked with Charlie Schwerkolt’s, Ford Performance Racing-run entry next year.
Jones is adamant he wants to keep the former Porsche Carrera Cup champion, who has performed strongly this year and sits ninth in the championship after last weekend’s Sucrogen Townsville 400.
“We obviously want to keep him next year,” Jones told BigPond Sport.
“When the time is right we’ll work through it with him, but our intention is for him to stay here.
“This is a good environment for him. It’s a smaller team than where he was previously and obviously it fits well with him too, and it’s working well for both of us.
“It’s still early in the season so there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge yet, but I didn’t hire him with the intention for him to be here just for one season.”
Coulthard is out of contract at the end of the season but says he’s focused on the year at hand.
“Right now I’ve got 2012 to worry about,” Coulthard told BigPond Sport.
“Of course it’s always in the back of my mind, not knowing what I’m going to do for the following year, but I try to block it out and not really worry about it.
“Come Bathurst I’ll start to look at it (next year). As long as I keep doing what I’m doing I think my career will sort itself.”
Coulthard has had eight top-10 finishes in the 15 V8 Supercars Championship races held so far this year – and has surprised even himself.
“In all honesty, we were a little bit ahead of our expectations at the start of the year,” he says.
“We finished third at the (non-championship) Albert Park event and at the time it felt a bit surreal. Now when we get a top-five result it feels like we really deserve it.
“We’ve just steadily gone about our business and we’ve popped up there at the end of a few races.
“I hope our first podium is not far away, I’m looking forward to finally standing on one of those boxes – it’s been too long! (Symmons Plains 2009)”
A mid-season swap of engineers has also helped re-energise the Team BOC and Lockwood Racing garages, with Phil Keed swapping with Andrew Edwards and moving from working with Jason Bright to now calling the shots on Coulthard’s #14 Lockwood Commodore.
“I formed a bond with Andrew early on and then had a bit of disruption when I changed to Phil, but we’re getting through that now,” says Coulthard.
“Phil and I are getting on and starting to talk the same language and I think that’s showing in our results.
“There’s a long way to go. I don’t think you can ever have a strong enough bond with your engineer and that takes time.”
Jones said that the engineering change was something that needed to happen and was now paying dividends.
“It’s certainly settled down what was going on with the team,” he says.
“I wouldn’t call it a masterstroke but it was something that needed to be done at the time.
“Sometimes you have to make tough decisions in business to get things moving along.
“The transition has been quite seamless and it’s certainly one of the things that has helped us get two cars going very fast again.
“Everyone’s happy and I can’t wait for the big events to come along because we’re inching away at it and getting closer to those two or three front teams.
“I think when we get to Sandown and Bathurst we should be even closer than we are now.”
