Plenty of news has been revealed ahead of the final Repco Supercars Championship round at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Two 250km races using both the hard and super soft tyres, although the weather is expected to play havoc across the weekend.
Big news entering the penultimate weekend of the Repco Supercars Championship was the return of David Reynolds to the grid after Bathurst winning co-driver Luke Youlden filled in for the previous two SMP weekends driving the Penrite Kelly Grove Racing Ford Mustang.
Kelly Grove Racing released the following statement:
“Kelly Grove Racing is pleased to announce that David Reynolds will be returning for Round 11 of the Supercars Championship this weekend.
“David is fully vaccinated and has fulfilled the requirements by NSW Health and Supercars to participate in this season’s penultimate event.
“Kelly Grove Racing would like to thank Luke Youlden for the phenomenal job he has done in David’s absence, and we are excited to have him back with us at the Bathurst 1000 early next month.”
Meanwhile, Matt Stone Racing has scored a coup by securing the services of the highly credentialed Pete Vale to take on the Team Principal role.
Vastly experienced in Formula 1 having worked at Lotus during the early-1990s before enjoying a long stint at McLaren, rising to Team Manager at Williams and finally finishing at Manor in 2016 in the role of chief mechanic.
Upon his return to Australia ahead of the 2017 Supercars Championship season, Vale joined Brad Jones Racing as Team Manager, fulfilling the until the end of this season.
The acquisition of Vale has set off a restructure within MSR as team founder Matt Stone moves into the CEO position, current Commercial Manager Alastair Bye becomes the new Commercial Director.
“It’s great to have Pete coming onboard,” said Stone.
“His experience and skills as team manager will further strengthen the resources of MSR and his drive will help propel us up the grid.
“His appointment will lead the expansion across the entire MSR operation to fill some vital roles within the team, allowing us to push our performance to the next level.”
MSR will have an entirely new driver line-up for 2022 as Todd Hazelwood returns to the team he debuted with back in 2018 and Jack Le Brocq joins from Tickford Racing.
For Brad Jones Racing, Vale’s departure follows Andrew Edwards defection to Triple Eight Race Engineering for next season.
Finally, if you missed it on Repco’s The Garage yesterday a Whincup was reunited with one of his previous race cars.
No, it wasn’t Jamie, but his uncle Graeme sat behind the wheel of his Chevrolet Monza for the first time since it was restored faithfully by Cary McMahon.