Marcos Ambrose temporarily out at V8 Supercars team
Former Sprint Cup Series driver Marcos Ambrose has requested to be temporarily removed from his Australian V8 Supercars seat, according to his team.
DJR Team Penske released a statement Tuesday that said Ambrose came to the team’s owners, Dick Johnson and Roger Penske, and said he needed to be better prepared for his return to the series.
Ambrose came back to the V8 Supercars series after a stint in NASCAR. He drove full-time in the Sprint Cup Series from 2009-2014. Before he came to NASCAR, he had 28 Supercars wins and won championships in 2003 and 2004.
“I want to thank DJR Team Penske for the opportunity and support through the process of transitioning back into V8 Supercars. I would like to make it clear that I am fully committed to this team, ” Ambrose said in a statement.
“Although this is a decision which has been hard to make, it has become clear to me over the first two events of the season that I need more experience in these cars to do what is required of the lead driver and to be competitive for the team and our partners. Scott is a great driver, has already worked with the team and has more experience in these cars, which will give the team the best chance to be successful right now.
The team said Ambrose is expected to return to the team at some point in 2015. He participated in the last three races of the season in 2014 and didn’t finish higher than 16th. In the first two races of 2015 he also finished 16th and finished 12th in the third race of the year. Those starting positions had been affected by poor qualifying results. Until the third race of 2015, he hadn’t qualified inside the top 20.
In the four Supercars races at last weekend’s Formula 1 weekend, Ambrose’s highest finish was 18th.
V8 Supercars competitor Lee Holdsworth told Inside Supercars he believed Ambrose was thrown for a loop because his results in his return didn’t match what he had done before he left for NASCAR.
“I think it’s probably been a massive shock for him to come back and see where he’s running,” the Walkinshaw racer said.
“The last time he was in the sport he was dominating and running right up the front all the time, and if he did have a bad qualifying he’d be back up the front after the first couple of laps.
“[At the] Grand Prix he stuck it on pole his first time there – so to come back and probably not be as competitive at the grand prix as he was in his first round has probably thrown him out a bit and [he’s thought], ‘this is really hard’.”
“You can’t be giving anything away at the moment, you need that bond with your engineer, you need a great car, you need more than one car in a team, you need the data to get from that other car.”
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
