Dane explains PremiAir move, responds to Triple Eight owner's criticism

Roland Dane is beginning to make his presence felt with PremiAir Racing, with the former Triple Eight supremo trackside at Sandown.

Dane will take over the Team Principal role at the Peter Xiberras-owned team in the New Year, but is getting a head start at this weekend's Penrite Oil Sandown 500.

The Irishman was behind Triple Eight Race Engineering's success through the 2000s, and stepped down from the Team Principal and Managing Director roles the end of 2021.

Having cut ties with Triple Eight at the end of 2024, Dane re-emerged this year with PremiAir, with his Team Principal role announced in October.

Dane also stepped down from his board role at PWR Holdings Limited, and after spending time Stateside watching son-in-law Shane van Gisbergen race in NASCAR, decided he still had a competitive urge.

"There's only so many NASCAR races you can go to as a spectator without an active involvement, even if it's your son-in-law," Dane said on the broadcast.

"I miss the competition. I've stepped down from the board of PWR that I've been on for years. I need to occupy my days usefully and stop my brain rotting, honestly."

The move ruffled feathers at his former team, with Triple Eight co-owner Tony Quinn labelling it a "shitty move."

Dane will now be pitted directly against former star driver turned Triple Eight boss Jamie Whincup, who won't return to co-driving in 2026.

With a wry smile, Dane joked: "Tony reckons we gonna fall out by March, so we're going make you to April, come what may."

On what his role entails, Dane explained: "I regard race teams as a big jigsaw puzzle. You've got to try and put all all the bits together, the component parts of it, which includes a lot of the right people, having a good group of people, which fundamentally, there's a good group of people here, they need the right direction.

"So it's my job to help with that. And when you've got the jigsaw together, you've got to then go and play chess, which is what we do, but both in front of the garage and behind the garage, the big game of chess.

"And if you're really, really good at it, you then play monopoly. And that's what Triple Eight do."