Tekno Autosports and its new driver Will Davison have been confirmed as boom partners for Craig Lowndes and the new Team Vortex in the 2016 V8 Supercars Championship.
The widely expected deal means Triple Eight Race Engineering’s new third Caltex-backed car and primary customer team will share the tactically advantageous second garage from pitlane exit behind teams’ championship winners Red Bull Racing Australia.
Shane van Gisbergen’s move from Tekno to RBRA helped trigger the creation of Team Vortex as a vehicle for Lowndes, while Davison moves into the Tekno seat after exiting Erebus Motorsport midway through a four-year deal.
This year Tekno, which is owned by the Webb family and managed by Steve Hallam, shared with fellow single car team DJR Team Penske.
But the US-owned squad is expanding to two cars and headed toward the other end of pitlane after finishing 13th in the teams’ championship.
Triple Eight owner Roland Dane said he was pleased to align his operation’s new third entry with its primary customer team, but stressed there would be no change to the business relationship between the two operations.
“As far as I see it now the relationship will be based on exactly the same structure as it is now except they will be sharing a garage with one of our cars because that’s the way the rules work and it make sense for both of us to do it.”
Tekno debriefs once per week during the season with Triple Eight and the two teams share data at the track. However, the Tekno driver and engineers do not debrief with T8 drivers and engineers at the track.
That arrangement would continue Dane confirmed.
“They are still their own people, they go about their business the way they do,” Dane said. “They are a credit to what they have done over the last couple of seasons, especially in the way they have ended up.
“Hats off to them they have done a really good job and I don’t think they are about to change that modus operandi. It will continue the same way except we will be in the garage next to them and not DJR.”
Van Gisbergen drove for the Tekno team for three years in Triple Eight Commodores, claiming fifth, second and fourth in the drivers’ championship in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively.
One change for 2016 symbolic of the close relationship will be the open presentation of the Vortex/Tekno garage, which will eschew the temporary walling that traditionally divides car teams sharing a double garage.
“They are aware of what we are running; set-ups and everything and we work alongside each other so we don’t anticipate a divide,” Dane explained.
“There will be a structure in the garage with a corporate identity on one side and corporate identity on the other side that will be very different.
“But absolutely we are planning to maintain as close a relation as we can for two different commercial entities.”
Dane also played down expectation that working out of the same garage might trigger a technical upgrade to the Tekno Holden Commodore VF, which despite being built-up mid-2015 is a 2013-14 specification.
For instance, it doesn’t employ the current generation T8 front upright, although it did adopt some items such as the rapid brake bias adjuster T8 introduced this year.
“It is up to them exactly where the equipment starts and finishes,” said Dane. “We have got stuff we are working on and that’s up to them to decide whether its is worth it or not worth it. That’s their choice.
“They might update some things or we might give them some more set-up options, but some of those things flow down from us already, including the rapid brake bias adjuster every one has seen and other things that people don’t see.”
