Prodrive Racing (Australia) has revealed Russell Ingall will replace Chaz Mostert for the Castrol Gold Coast 600 in what will be the V8 Supercars veteran’s 250th event start.
Ingall will co-drive the #6 Pepsi Max Crew Ford alongside Cameron Waters as Mostert continues to recover from a broken leg and wrist, sustained in a season-ending crash in practice at last weekend’s Bathurst 1000.
“Thankfully with the format of racing, when the races are actually on myself, Mark Skaife and Jessica hand over to the commentary team so it’s actually worked in quite good that they’ve allowed me to do this,” said Ingall.
“It brings more of an insight into what happens behind the scenes with some of these top race teams and obviously Prodrive at the moment is the top team and it’s the one everyone’s chasing so it’s going to be good to actually get in and find out the reasons why they’re doing all this winning.
“It’s going to be great a part of that to jump in with Cam and also give an evaluation on that because obviously Cam’s hot property at the moment and I know how he feels when I got into the championship out of the gate. It can be daunting. Hopefully I can give him some advice on both sides of the seat.
“There’d be no reason at all why we couldn’t get a pretty reasonable result; definitely a top five result.”
Having been lured out of retirement, the 51-year-old competed at Sandown and Bathurst for the Holden Racing Team stepping in for the injured James Courtney, who is expected to be cleared to race at the Gold Coast 600, after being ruled out of the last three events. And it’s this recent run that PRA Team Principal Tim Edwards says made Ingall the prime candidate for the seat.
“It’s great to have Russell on board. He has a lot of experience at the Gold Coast circuit which was what we were looking for,” Edwards said.
“Our aim is to keep our lead in the team’s championship so that means avoiding a DNF next week. Russell has also worked with our car #6 race engineer Adam De Borre so they already know how the other operates which will make the process that much easier.
“Practice on Friday will be really important for both of them but particularly for Russell who will need to acclimatise with the car.”
Current Dunlop Series championship leader Cameron Waters will step up as the main driver for the event, and will also compete in Mostert’s absence at the ITM Auckland 500 and Phillip Island SuperSprint.
“It’s great to be racing with Russell. He has so much experience and I am really looking forward to learning a lot off him, particularly at the Gold Coast,” said Waters.
“I’m really happy that the team has put their faith in me and asked me to race the car at Auckland and Phillip Island. It’s a great opportunity for me to prove that I can be competitive in the main game and help the team achieve that teams points championship which is the main aim.”
The team is yet to decide who will pilot car #6 at the series’ final round, the Sydney 500, with Waters’ Dunlop Series commitments expected to rule him out of contention.
