DJR Announces Restructure And 2021 Engineering Lineup
• Ryan Story – Chairman and CEO
• Ben Croke – Team Principal
• Perry Kapper – Chief Engineer
• Ron Young – Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary
• Josh Silcock – Team Manager
• Ludo Lacroix – Race Engineer for Anton De Pasquale
• Richard Harris – Race Engineer for Will Davison
Dick Johnson Racing (DJR) announced Wednesday a team restructure as well as their engineering lineup ahead of the 2021 Repco Supercars Championship.
Ryan Story said the changes were necessary to not only strengthen the business but also to create greater stability and structure within the team.
“We have a very ambitious growth strategy which encapsulates not only Supercars but our organization as a whole. We’ve given great consideration as to how we go racing, how we can operate better on the ground, and how we can ensure the people with the appropriate skill sets and experience are in the right roles.
“At a later stage, we look forward to announcing our Advisory Board that will aid and assist the senior management of the race team. It will comprise a group of people who possess enormous levels of experience both in motorsport and in business.
“Dick and I are very proud owners of his eponymous racing team, and in taking on the Chairman and CEO roles, it’s not dissimilar to what I’ve been doing in years past since 2013. But it does change some of the responsibilities for the day-to-day operations of the race team itself.
“In Ben Croke, we have a guy who’s been involved in motor racing not just here in Australia in Supercars, but in Europe as well. He’s got an immense amount of experience, and he’s been with us for a long time. I think that now is the right time for him to step up.
“Perry Kapper and Josh Silcock are two people who are very well known to us and who have done a tremendous job for our team over many seasons. Ron Young has been associated with the team a lot longer than he’s been a direct employee. He worked for Crimsafe for many years with Steve Brabeck, and he’s a real figure of strength in terms of his administrative management of the organization.
Front Row: Ludo Larcoix, Richard Harris, Ben Croke, Dick Johnson, Mark Fenning
“The roles of Ludo Lacroix (Competition Director) and Nick Hughes (Technical Director) remain unchanged. Mark Fenning also remains as a key member of the trackside engineering group moving to a senior role across both cars, while also focusing on the design and development of the Gen3 Mustang alongside Perry Kapper. We have a very solid team which will continue to build the Dick Johnson Racing legacy.
“In terms of our engineering lineup for next year, we look forward to having Ludo engineering Anton De Pasquale and taking on a young driver similar to when he first joined our team in 2017 alongside Scott McLaughlin. Richard Harris will step up to a race engineering role to run Will Davison’s Shell V-Power Racing Team Mustang,” said Story.
Motorsport Hall of Famer Dick Johnson echoed Story’s comments saying the changes were about optimizing the organization.
“We have to keep looking at ways of improving the entire structure of the whole business, and Ryan has put in a lot of time and effort into thinking about the best way of doing that – and this is the best way,” said Johnson.
Further announcements will be forthcoming from the team as it continues its preparation for the 2021 Repco Supercars season.