Ford boss sends SOS as Lowndes contemplates future
21/8/2000 20:04 (V8 Wire - Jason Whittaker) - Frustrated Ford boss Geoff Polites has sent an SOS to Holden star Craig Lowndes, urging him to defect from General Motors and help resurrect the Blue Oval V8 Supercar campaign.
Polities is becoming increasingly perturbed by the performance of his Ford Racing team over the past few months, and says Lowndes could be what’s required to boost their current ranks.
"Lowndes knows my phone number. If he's interested in changing we would be interested in talking to him. He's a very talented driver," Polities, President of Ford Australia, told AAP.
"But he has to make the running. It's not up to me to go running around with a chequebook. If he were available we would do a deal with him, but he has to make two or three decisions about what he wants to do," he said.
Lowndes – a three-times consecutive championship winner with the Factory Holden squad – will be a free agent come the end of the year, with his Holden Racing Team contract expiring at season’s end. He is yet to resign for next year.
Snaring a high-profile driver such as Lowndes would be a major coup for the marque, who has lagged behind the opposition, both on the racetrack and in the salesroom, for much longer than Polities would like.
Ford has not won a Shell Championship Series round since
Hidden Valley last year, a plight Polities blamed on category administrators. As a result, he threatened to pull the company’s support from the two-make formula earlier this year in the midst of the heated performance parity debate.
While the Holden-Ford inequality issues are far from resolved, it now appears the Ford Racing driving squad are under increased pressure to perform, or lose their jobs. If Lowndes was to sign, vacancies would be made.
Craig Lowndes’ future has been much discussed over the last few months, and while getting Lowndes strapped-into a Falcon next year seems a long shot, it’s certainly not out of the question.
While Lowndes won’t comment on the mooted Ford switch, he has hinted at the possibility of returning overseas (he raced in the European Formula 3000 series in ’97) to race sportscars.
Lowndes was named in the Panoz squad to tackle the Adelaide “Race of a Thousand Years” this New Year’s Eve. It’s a category the 26-year-old has said he would be keen to enter into on a more permanent basis.
"I have been trying to do the Le Mans 24 Hour in France for the past couple of years, but the timing hasn't fitted well with the V8 Supercar championship,” Lowndes explained.
"If Mark (Noske) and I can do a good job in Adelaide, hopefully this could lead to bigger things," he said.
"I would still love to race overseas and the Le Mans Series is very attractive to me because I really enjoy longer races.”
"With these cars there are some big events which go 24 hours, 12 hours, 10 hours and 6 hours – it would be great to do some more of these races," Lowndes said.
Panoz boss, and American Le Mans Series founder, Don Panoz, said Lowndes (along with Mark Noske) would be a welcome addition to the blossoming international Le Mans series.
"Le Mans style racing is certainly going to expand in this part of the world and Craig and Mark could have a big chance of being part of that expansion," Panoz said.
Lowndes currently sits a disappointing fourth in the Shell Series championship chase. With HRT boss Jeff Grech declaring he would pair his two stars (Mark Skaife the other) in the one car for the endurance events, Lowndes won’t be given the opportunity to defend his title this year.
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