Dutton puts Red Bull back on-track

Buoyed by stronger form at the Castrol EDGE Townsville 400 and convinced a record seventh V8 Supercars Championship is still within reach this year, Jamie Whincup has made it clear he believes his one-off reunification with engineer Mark Dutton should stay in place for the rest of the season.

Dutton has been team manager of Red Bull Racing Australia since the start of the 2014 season, but stepped back in to the engineering role with Whincup to replace David Cauchi after the defending champion slumped to eighth in the Championship 286 points behind leader Mark Winterbottom at the Darwin round.

And while his 9-5 finishes in the two 200km races at Reid Park in his RBRA Holden Commodore VF meant he stayed eighth and dropped to a massive 391 points behind Townsville double-winner Winterbottom in his all-conquering PRA Pepsi Max Ford Falcon FG X, Whincup emerged confident that he and Dutton's close bond had yielded a path back to competitiveness.

The problem is that Dutton was only due to be installed in the role for one round because of the absence of RBRA engineering chief Ludo Lacroix, who was expected to engineer Whincup for the rest of the season from the next event, the Coates Hire Ipswich SuperSprint on July 31-August 2.

Dutton's role as team manager was taken over by team owner Roland Dane in Townsville, but he was originally expected to step back up to the 'prat perch' for that meeting.

Whether Dane would be prepared to extend his tenure as team manager, handle his other roles within the team and his other business interests will be one of the issues to be resolved if Whincup's desire to be reunited with the engineer he won five of his titles with turns out to be successful.

"I think that (the engineering arrangements beyond Townsville) is all pretty loose," Whincup told v8supercars.com.au. "That's the boss's (Dane's) call. It's his team and he decides who does what role.

"I think what is pencilled in and what actually happens is two different things. We will go back after the weekend and plan the best way forward.

"But it is pretty good to have fast cars, that's the most critical thing and to have the people in the areas where they have the most expertise. So we will go away and chat away and come up with a plan."

Asked if that was his diplomatic way of requesting an ongoing alliance with Dutton, Whincup replied:

"All I am saying is Dutto is one of the best engineers in the country and I reckon he would be up there in the world.

"He's training to be a team manager and hopefully he is very good at that, but in some ways we are not utilising his correct skills."

Whincup said he and Dutton had managed to find a "direction" on setup that gave him confidence to believe a record seventh championship and fifth in a row was still possible in 2015.

"We will keep chipping away at that over the next three or four months," said Whincup. "It is certainly not all over, there are a lot of races to go between now and the end of the year.

"It is a bit irrelevant to focus on those (championship points) numbers until after the Gold Coast (final round of the Pirtek Enduro Cup).

If I am 100 points ahead or 400 points behind it's a bit irrelevant when there are 900 points up for grabs in those enduro races. It can turn a year.

"So where we are after that, hopefully we are in contention and if we are, fantastic."

While Dane told v8supercars.com.au that he hadn't given any thought to the Whincup-Dutton alliance continuing on post-Townsville, Dutton suggested it was unlikely.

"I don't really think that's an option right now, for just team reasons, me in my role and Roland doing what he normally does and not stepping into this role," he said.

Dutton will feature on tomorrow night's episode of Inside Supercars on FOX SPORTS 506 at 7.30pm - so tune in from moreone of the Red Bull team's key players.