Lacroix sheds light on PremiAir-Triple Eight alliance

PremiAir Racing’s technical guru Ludo Lacroix has shed light on his team’s technical alliance with Triple Eight, admitting the Gold Coast squad played catch-up in Townsville.

PremiAir Racing is one of three teams with a technical alliance with Triple Eight, along with Brad Jones Racing and Matt Stone Racing.

While Triple Eight leads both championships, PremiAir Racing is one of two teams not to have climbed the podium this year, the other being Erebus Motorsport.

The customer relationship with Triple Eight affords PremiAir Racing access to data and set-up information.

In PremiAir’s post-Townsville debrief video, Lacroix explained that while PremiAir is “very close” to Triple Eight, his squad still affords wriggle room in set-up for their drivers.

Rolling out of the truck stung all Triple Eight-interlinked cars in Townsville; on Friday, Bryce Fullwood was best of the 10 cars in eighth, ahead of Richie Stanaway (12th), Broc Feeney (14th), André Heimgartner (15th), Cameron Hill (16th), James Golding (18th), Will Brown (20th), Nick Percat (22nd), Jaxon Evans (23rd) and Macauley Jones (24th).

However, where Feeney and Brown improved across the weekend and rounded out with a Sunday 1-2, the other eight cars struggled. Of the eight customer cars, only Fullwood reached a Shootout.

Stanaway was 22nd and 17th in qualifying on Saturday and Sunday, with Golding 23rd and 14th. Crucially, it left Golding exposed to drama on lap 1, with a pile-up consigning him to his first DNF in three years on the Saturday.

“We are very close to Triple Eight, come of our guys have worked at Triple Eight at some stage,” Lacroix said.

“Both of them are fast, well-driven and well set-up. We try to have our two cars in between these two.

“It’s sort of a left hand and right hand, and if we are between these two… not completely identical, but very close, we are pretty happy.

“We need to have a little bit of flexibility in the set-up, because the feel of the driver is not always completely the same. That’s what we tried to do at Townsville.”

A long-time employee of Triple Eight, Lacroix joined PremiAir in the 2023/24 off-season. His impact was felt; Golding was a standout driver, claiming pole in Darwin and a maiden podium for driver and team at Sandown.

However, the team has regressed on the scoreboard this season, with Golding and Stanaway sitting 16th and 20th. Lacroix has taken a step back from race engineering, with Andrew Gilliam looking after Stanaway. Golding, meanwhile, has been overseen by Simon Hodge, with Romy Mayer taking maternity leave.

While previously stating he is keen to move away from customer set-ups as seasons wear on, Lacroix insisted his team uses the data, but suggested PremiAir lost a day in Townsville trying to get up to speed.

Moving away from the data seemed to work for Stanaway in Tasmania, but the Kiwi was left scratching his head after Townsville.

"It took probably a day for us to highlight completely where we were, and how to use it. We were better on Saturday and clearly Sunday,” Lacroix added.

“There is an alliance, and I promise you we use it, it’s pretty evident that those guys are doing a very, very good job.”