LDM international co-driver wait

One of the final co-driver seats awaiting confirmation for the Pirtek Enduro Cup is still some weeks away from being locked in.

Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport team manager Barry Hay learned during the Castrol EDGE Townsville 400 that the international driver he is chasing to share with Tim Blanchard in the Cooldrive Holden Commodore VF won't be able to confirm his availability for some time yet.

Hay is understood to have local back-ups in place in the form of either Dunlop development series driver Aaren Russell or former main-game regular Karl Reindler to share the seat with Blanchard, but the team's first priority is an international driver.

The team has also confirmed Blanchard, who has had a difficult start to the year, has ramped up and changed his training and race preparation with a specific eight week program as he sets himself for a big shot at better results in the September 11-13 Wilson Security Sandown 500, October 8-11 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 and October 23-25 Castrol Gold Coast 600.

"We have a big one (an international driver) we are trying to push for and I won't know about that for at least two or three weeks," Hay told v8supercars.com.au. "I found that out on Friday (of Townsville).

"It doesn't really matter because there are no other co-drives available (in the Pirtek Enduro Cup), but if I can get this other guy it's worth pushing for that."

If LDM does succeed in securing an import to share with Blanchard then it will be the only team with an all-international co-driver line-up for the PEC, as team-mate Nick Percat will be joined by Briton Oliver Gavin in the Repair Management Australia Commodore.

Other internationals headed to the PEC include factory Nissan driver Alex Buncombe with Todd Kelly and Sebastien Bourdais in the Team 18 Holden Commodore with Lee Holdsworth.

Hay said he was frustrated by how long the process had taken to secure an international co-driver for the Cooldrive entry. He revealed that at least two previously targeted drivers had fallen through.

"We started work on this a long time ago. We are not in this situation now because we left it to the last minute.

"This whole co-driver thing has just dragged on and dragged on. Because the people we are dealing with were overseas and we were dealing with them for specific reasons, it's just such a painful process.

"It's not like ringing a local driver that's just a few suburbs away and you make it all happen.

"You contact a manager and he manages a factory driver, so he has to go through the manufacturer. And they are in different time zones doing different meetings and you might have to wait three or four days because they are away racing before we get something back.

"Something that should take a week takes six weeks and at the end of that you find they are not suitable or not available. We have had that happen to us twice."

Hay said the program for Blanchard leading into the enduros dealt as much with his mental approach to racing as his physical approach.

A former Formula Ford champion and a race winner in the Dunlop development series, the 28-year old's previous stints in the V8 Supercars Championship came in difficult circumstances with Kelly Racing and Dick Johnson Racing and yielded little success.

This year he has been limited by a lack of testing and practice tyres because his car's underpinning REC has only been returned to service this year, while his Triple Eight-built Commodore has only been equivalent spec to team-mate Percat's since Darwin. He runs 23rd in the drivers' championship.

"We want to get Tim out of his comfort zone because Tim has done the same training and the same approach to his racing his whole career," said Blanchard. "I want to try and shock him out of it because I think he has driving ability but I don't think he has the massive confidence of someone like a James Courtney, who have that persona that they are just flat-out supermen.

"Once he gets confidence he carries on with his driving. If he had no ability then you wouldn't waste your time, but I think he has and we just have to dig it out.

"So we have tried to tip that upside down, we have him hooked up with a sports psychologist ... who has done a lot with the Holden Racing Team and quite a few guys because I think that helps put him in the right zone."

Hay also pointed out that Blanchard unlike many of his rivals had a separate full-time job that was proving distracting at the events: "We have tried to manage that at the track."