No new cars for Team Vodafone
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12:17 PM Fri 7 January, 2011
Source: BigPond Sport
After last year’s hectic summer break spent switching manufacturers, TeamVodafone has elected not to build new racecars for the start of the 2011 season.
Jamie Whincup’s Engineer Mark Dutton says the focus this off season will be on refining their existing VE Holden Commodores for Whincup and Craig Lowndes, and progressing with the introduction of Car of The Future.
“This is the first time since Triple Eight Race Engineering has been operational in Australia that we have not built new race cars in the off season,” Dutton said.
“Last year we spent the entire off season redesigning a new car, which was a huge job. There were around 3000 parts that had to be redesigned.
“This year we obviously don’t have the same amount of work on, but we are spending a lot of time refining components, taking weight out of the car and redesigning things we haven’t been entirely happy with throughout the year.”
Despite missing out on the Driver’s Championship, the team still claimed ten pole positions and twelve race wins, including victory in the L&H 500 and Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, in its first year with Holden.
Whincup and Lowndes secured 2nd and 4th in the Drivers Championship respectively and the team capped off the year by being crowned the Champion Team of the Year at the 2010 Gala Awards.
The drivers and crew are currently enjoying a three week break, but around 45 of the staff will start work on the 10th of January- less than three weeks to the official test day at Eastern Creek.
“The car changed a lot set-up wise from the start of the season to the end, and we’ve learnt a lot about how the car behaves. There were also things throughout the year where we have said ‘if I could change that I would…’and now we have the time to look at all those things," Dutton said.
“The test day will give us a chance to try some new components and systems, and have a good shakedown before we head to Abu Dhabi to defend our title.”
The 2011 V8 Supercar Championship Series kicks off with the Yas V8 400 at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi on February 11- 12.
