Dane Will Seek Burgess Replacement
Adrian Burgess will be replaced by a new team manager at Red Bull Racing Australia, but team owner Roland Dane says he will take his time doing it.
And he also says he is not sure whether he will promote from within the Triple Eight Racing organisation or seek an outsider, as he did with Burgess.
The Englishman was sensationally poached by Ryan Wakinshaw in August to take over as managing director of Walkinshaw Racing, which campaigns the two Holden Racing Team Commodores and the Supercheap Auto Racing entry in the V8 Supercars Championship.
As a result, Burgess is on gardening leave from his role as team manager of RBRA until his contract with the team expires at the end of 2013.
Dane hired the former Formula One mechanic away from his position as Sporting Director at Dick Johnson Racing at the end of 2010 season, after Burgess oversaw James Courtney’s Championship win in an ex-Triple Eight Ford Falcon.
The move to Walkinshaw Racing reunites Burgess with Courtney.
Dane made it clear that Burgess’ decision to move on had not pleased him.
“One of the things I hate in motorsport and always have done is motor racing mercenaries,” he told v8supercars.com.au. “I like people who are there for the long haul and every so often you take someone on who doesn’t fit that and you pay the price.
“Ultimately I want people who are long term team players and not just there for the short term.
“Adrian knows my feelings about it. It’s no great surprise. He said he wanted to come to us for 10 years and of course hasn’t. That’s the way it goes but I probably won’t make the same mistake again.”
In the wake of Burgess’ departure Dane has temporarily resumed his place at the ‘prat perch’ alongside Jamie Whincup’s engineer Mark Dutton and Craig Lowndes’ engineer Jeromy ‘JJ’ Moore.
But although he enjoys the role, Dane says it is not something that he wishes to do permanently.
“I find it difficult to keep away from it, I enjoy it, but …. it has always been my aim to ensure I had other people coming up, so sooner or later I have still got to put someone in that place.”
Asked whether the Burgess experience made him more likely to promote from within, Dane said: “I haven’t decided”.
Dane also emphasised the reliability and pace issues RBRA suffered at the Winton 360, the first event after Burgess’ departure, had nothing to do with his absence.
“None whatsoever. I saw some description of Adrian as an engineer. He is not an engineer, he is a very good team manger, he is an exemplary team manager, but he is not an engineer.
“In this environment we have won an awful lot of races without Adrian or anyone else for that matter, so the issues that we have had at Winton are purely self-made in the team through reliability issue. It doesn’t happen very often. In fact it has afflicted us less than any one else this year.”
Dane also revealed that his consideration of expanding from two to four cars for 2014 had been abandoned weeks before Burgess left the organisation.
“We have two cars and we will stay at two cars,” he said. “I have already discussed that at length. We won’t be trying to do anything else next year.”
