Brad Jones Racing

Brad Jones Racing

Team(s): Freightliner Racing / CoolDrive Racing
Manufacturer: Holden
Team Principal: Brad Jones
Chassis: Holden Commodore ZB
Debut: 2000
Drivers’ Championships:
Drivers: Nick Percat (Blackwoods Racing) / Tim Slade (Freightliner Racing) / Tim Blanchard (CoolDrive Racing)

A brief history

Brad Jones Racing has one of the strongest pedigrees in Australian motorsport. With brothers Brad and Kim at the helm, Brad Jones Racing has won ten national titles in five different categories, in over 17 years of professional motorsport.
The team entered the V8 Supercars series in 2001 after purchasing an AU Ford Falcon and franchise from Tony Longhurst, moving from Ford to Holden in 2008.

After a competitive 2013 under the new Car of the Future regulations, Brad Jones Racing’s form slumped in 2014 with Fabian Coulthard and Jason Bright notching up only one win each. While the team showed bursts of speed throughout 2015, Coulthard and Dale Wood left with Tim Slade and Tim Blanchard joining Jason Bright for the 2016 Supercars campaign.
Finishing eighth in the championship, Slade won back-to-back races at the team’s home track of Winton. The South Australian clean-swept the weekend dominating the two races and taking a pole to end a 226-race streak without a victory. Bright and Blanchard meanwhile struggled throughout the season. Bright, who had been at Brad Jones Racing since 2010 announced he would be leaving for Prodrive Racing Australia at the end of the season taking his Racing Entitlements Contract with him.

In 2017 Slade was joined by fellow South Australian and good friend Nick Percat, while Tim Blanchard remained in the team’s third car. Despite much promise, 2017 will not be remembered too fondly at BJR. Its troubled season started with a collision for Nick Percat at Adelaide, followed by a heavy crash and extensive damage at Albert Park. All three of its Holdens were then caught up in the 12-car smash in the next meeting at Symmons Plains. Two BJR cars were also damaged in an earlier Dunlop Super2 race. Worse was to come at both Sandown and Bathurst. Todd Hazelwood’s horror crash at Sandown requiring a complete rebuild and Tim Slade’s encounter with a Bathurst wall in the first practice session of the day forcing yet another overnight repair.

2018

With no wins for the first time in the Supercars Car of the Future era, BJR switches engine suppliers from Noonan Race Engines to KRE for 2018 hoping to match their rivals in power and get them back up the pointy end of the field. All three drivers remain but with new team manager Peter Vale at the helm, the ex-Williams Formula 1 man replacing long-time manager Chris Clark.