Prodrive Racing (Australia) will welcome V8 Supercars Champion and Fox Sports presenter, Russell Ingall to the Pepsi Max Crew fold to replace injured star Chaz Mostert for the Castrol Gold Coast 600 in what will be his 250th event start.
The V8 Supercars veteran will step into the #6 Pepsi Max Crew Ford purely for the Gold Coast event to race alongside rising star Cameron Waters as Mostert continues to recover from a broken leg and wrist, sustained in a monster crash in practice at last weekend’s Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
Ingall’s recent experience in the Next Generation chassis as well as a wealth of experience at the Gold Coast circuit sealed the deal after being given the green light by FOX Sports management.
“Thankfully with the format of racing, when the races are actually on myself, Mark Skaife and Jessica (Yates) hand over to the commentary team so it’s actually worked in quite good that they’ve allowed me to do this,” said Ingall.
“It brings more of an insight into what happens behind the scenes with some of these top race teams and obviously Prodrive at the moment is the top team and it’s the one everyone’s chasing. So it’s going to be good to actually get in and find out the reasons why they’re doing all this winning.
“It’s going to be great a part of that to jump in with Cam and also give an evaluation on that because obviously Cam’s hot property at the moment and I know how he feels when I got into the championship out of the gate. It can be daunting. Hopefully I can give him some advice on both sides of the seat.
“There’d be no reason at all why we couldn’t get a pretty reasonable result; definitely a top five result.”
A Ford driver from 2003 to 2007, Ingall has fond memories of racing for the Blue Oval after claiming his 2005 championship in a Ford BA Falcon with Stone Brothers Racing.
After recently returning from retirement to race alongside Jack Perkins at Sandown and Bathurst, PRA Team Principal Tim Edwards believed Ingall was the best possible candidate for the position.
“It’s great to have Russell on board. He has a lot of experience at the Gold Coast circuit which was what we were looking for,” Edwards said.
“Our aim is to keep our lead in the team’s championship so that means avoiding a DNF next week. Russell has also worked with our car #6 race engineer Adam De Borre so they already know how the other operates which will make the process that much easier.
“Practice on Friday will be really important for both of them but particularly for Russell who will need to acclimatise with the car.”
Current Dunlop Series championship leader Cameron Waters will step up as the main driver for the event, and will also compete in Mostert’s absence at the ITM Auckland 500 and Phillip Island SuperSprint.
“It’s great to be racing with Russell. He has so much experience and I am really looking forward to learning a lot off him, particularly at the Gold Coast,” said Waters.
“I’m really happy that the team has put their faith in me and asked me to race the car at Auckland and Phillip Island. It’s a great opportunity for me to prove that I can be competitive in the main game and help the team achieve that teams points championship which is the main aim.”
The team is yet to decide who will pilot car #6 at the series’ final round at Homebush due to Waters’ Dunlop Series commitments.
