Tickford announces 2021 engineering line-up
Tickford Racing has announced its team and engineering structure ahead of the 2021 Repco Supercars Championship.
The Ford squad has downsized to three cars for 2021, but retains the majority of its lead personnel.
Tim Edwards heads into his 17th season with Tickford and will return as team principal, with Matthew Roberts commencing his third season as team manager.
Chief mechanic Ben Milton enters his third year in his position, with chief engineer Nathaniel Osborne and engineering manager Brad Wischusen also returning.
Wischusen will engineer James Courtney's #44 Boost Mobile Mustang, while Sam Potter and Sam Scaffidi will continue their race engineering roles in 2021.
Potter will return with Cameron Waters for a third season, with the #6 Monster Energy Mustang driver looming as a 2021 title hopeful after a breakout 2020 season.
Last year, Waters finished second overall, and claimed a maiden solo win at The Bend, as well as pole position at Bathurst.
Scaffidi remains with the #5 Truck Assist entry, which will be driven by Jack Le Brocq this season.
Data engineers Raymond Lau and Rhys Lenegan, as well as engine engineer Adam Mittek, also remain with the team in 2021.
Lau will continue his role race engineering the team's Dunlop Super2 Series car, with Zak Best to steer the entry in 2021.
Edwards was delighted to retain the team's core group as it aims for a first championship in six years.
"This is a team game, after all, and in terms of our crew we're really happy to have almost all of our team from 2020 back with us in 2021," he said.
"All of our engineers and mechanics worked with us last season, most of them are still on the same car, and even back at the workshop we have all the same department heads as last year.
"After a year where so much changed, it's really positive to have the same faces around the workshop, and that consistency gives us added confidence heading into the new season.
"Obviously 2020 was a tough year for everyone, but it galvanised the team in a lot of ways and you could say it helped us improve as a team, our results certainly reinforced that.”
A key change for the team was Brendan Hogan shifting to the new Blanchard Racing Team, which has a technical alliance with Tickford and will share a pit bay with Le Brocq.
While admitting Hogan was a loss, Edwards was keen to see Wischusen step up with Courtney in the 2010 series champion's first full-time season with Tickford.
He also expects Le Brocq, who claimed a maiden win last season, to improve with Scaffidi in his ear.
"Obviously Cam and Sam Potter are operating well together, so we didn't want to touch that," Edwards added.
"But with Brendan leaving we felt that putting JC and Brad together will work well because they're both very experienced and have a lot of knowledge between the two of them.
"We believe they'll operate well and can help improve all of our cars while achieving results of their own.
"Scaff did a great job in 2019 helping Lee [Holdsworth] get up to speed in our car and Jack was really starting to figure things out at the end of 2020.
"We think they'll play well off of each other and can find those last few hundredths to get Jack to the front more frequently.
"All around we have a great group of people in our camp, and we're very excited for the year ahead."
Tickford's three cars will hit the track at next week's official pre-season test at Winton, having cut laps at Phillip Island last week.
The 2021 Repco Supercars Championship will commence at the Repco Mt Panorama 500. Tickets are on sale now.
