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The impact of rookie Chaz Mostert’s stunning maiden V8 Supercars victory is still being felt at Ford’s Dick Johnson Racing (DJR).
Seemingly down and out when the season started, DJR have become the V8 feelgood story after their first victory since 2010 lured not only renewed sponsorship dollars but also the man behind Ford sensation Mark Winterbottom’s stellar rise.
In a remarkable coup, factory-backed Ford Performance Racing’s senior engineer Campbell Little looks set to link with DJR.
The news came just days after a major security firm pledged their financial support to DJR for the rest of the season on the basis of 21-year-old hotshot Mostert’s stunning breakthrough win in the recent V8 round at Ipswich.
Suddenly DJR are a team to watch.
It was unthinkable when the season started.
At the time, team icon and five-time V8 champion Dick Johnson was forced to dump his son Steven and bring in another driver with guaranteed sponsors just to pay the bills.
At one stage, DJR were a race-by-race proposition until Johnson was able to land a last gasp sponsorship deal in June.
Johnson had been no stranger to tough times.
The three-time Bathurst 1000 champion had revealed just days ahead of the Ipswich round that he was broke after blowing $9.1 million over misguided deals and had been battling for nine years to keep his team alive.
Now the future is bright thanks to Mostert – a driver who incredibly started the year in the V8 second-tier Dunlop Series.
Mostert did not enter the V8 series this year until round four in Perth, but by the time he arrived at Ipswich he was 24th in the 28-man field after eight top-15 finishes, including three top 10s.
And it seems more success is tipped for Mostert judging by the stunning reaction to his win ahead of Ford guns Will Davison and Winterbottom in the last round at Ipswich.
Apart from Wilson Security jumping on board as sponsors, Little has been tipped to head up DJR’s technical operations between V8 races.
FPR team principal Tim Edwards did not want to give away too much on Friday.
“We have a very close relationship with DJR and our engineering group works quite closely with theirs,” he told speedcafe website.
The driving force behind the successful Stone Brothers Racing and Triple Eight teams of the 2000s, Little had been in the sights of many Queensland-based teams ahead of the 2014 season.
Little appears to be the latest technical guru on the move following the recent revelation that FPR’s engineering manager Mathew Nilsson and Red Bull Racing’s team principal Adrian Burgess were bound for the resurgent Holden Racing Team.
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