New Falcon faces short racing career

Yesterday's announcement that Ford is pulling out of V8 Supercars in 2016 came the same day (December 1) the reborn Falcon XR8 officially went on sale. And there is a real likelihood the production car will outlive the racing version.

The XR8 is scheduled to survive until manufacturing ceases in Australia no later than October 2016, but 2015 may be the only year the FG X races in the V8 Supercars Championship.

Instead, by 2016, the current factory team Ford Performance Racing and the privateer operation, DJR Team Penske, could be racing for other manufacturers.

Ford is continuing to back FPR in 2015 with a reduced commercial deal, while also assisting with the homologation of the FG X V8 Supercar. Six Falcons are expected to race in 2015 — five of them run by Prodrive Racing Australia, the parent company of FPR.

“We are disappointed for ourselves and the legions of Ford fans but at least now that we know that means for 2016 we are absolutely in the market for a new manufacturer,” confirmed PRA CEO Tim Edwards.

“If there is a manufacturer out there I’d like to think we are a fairly appealing prospect,” he added. “If you can get in with one of the top teams in the category which has won the Bathurst 1000 the last two years and finished second in the (teams) championship the last three years … we would be an appealing prospect.”

Lexus is the brand being most publicly linked with a potential entry in the V8 Supercars Championship, most likely after the 2017 introduction of Gen2 technical regulations, which includes engines other than V8s and body shapes other than sedans.

“We have probably taken more than a passing interest in what other manufacturers have been doing, but until this point we are blue through and through,” said Edwards. “I am a proud Ford man myself and I haven’t given up hope we might be able to continue racing Fords past 2015. All is not lost yet.”

That is a reference to Prodrive’s negotiations with the Ford National Dealer Council, which are understood to be still live despite Ford’s official withdrawal.

“There are alternative strategies we are exploring to continue with the Ford product and have been for some time,” confirmed Edwards.

Ford has informed PRA it is withdrawing its sponsorship so more marketing money can be spent on promoting a stream of new vehicles and developing an improved customer experience.

“This is a business decision from them about where they want to spend their marketing dollars and whilst we can try and influence that, it is ultimately is their decision,” said Edwards. “It is disappointing and clearly all of us would have opposing views about whether it is right or wrong.

“But ultimately it is their decision and it would be interesting to see if their millions of supporters agree with them.”

Edwards predicted the Ford withdrawal would have little immediate impact because PRA’s income sources include a large group of sponsors beyond Ford and varied income streams including engineering services.

However, he conceded the budget hole would need to be filled for 2016 and beyond.

“There is no doubt we have some work to do,” he said. “But we are quite a diverse business. We don’t have all our eggs in one basket. We have multiple revenue streams and while you never like to lose any part of that there are other areas of revenue and we will have to look at bolstering those to bridge the gap.”

The first obvious sign of a changing of the guard could be swapping the name from Ford Performance Racing for the two official Pepsi-Max sponsored cars driven by Mark Winterbottom and Chaz Mostert.

The over-arching Prodrive Racing Australia title has become more prominent this year and is being developed for use in a similar way to Triple Eight Race Engineering, which is the name of the company that owns the factory Holden-backed Red Bull Racing Australia.

“That is one of a number of things that we are working through at the moment,” confirmed Edwards. “Obviously you could mount a good business case as to why you would want to move sooner rather than later to give you that flexibility.”

Prodrive Racing Australia — and its FPR off-shoot — is co-owned by Australian racing veterans Rusty French and Rod Nash, who brought the business from British motorsport entrepreneur David Richards in December 2012. FPR has been Ford’s official factory team since 2003.

Two other non-factory Falcons are campaigned out of Prodrive’s Campbellfield (Vic) headquarters: The Bottle-O entry driven by David Reynolds and owned by Nash, and the Charlie Schwerkolt Racing entry to be driven in 2015 by Lee Holdsworth.

A fifth Prodrive-built Falcon is expected to be run out of a separate location for New Zealand debutante Super Black Racing, while the single DJR Team Penske entry for Marcos Ambrose will benefit from a technical partnership with PRA.