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NEW RACE ENGINEER FOR IRWIN RACING

Topics: Daniel Kroehn

NEW RACE ENGINEER FOR IRWIN RACING

Stone Brothers Racing
January 18, 2011

The man that took Mark Winterbottom to second in the 2008 V8 Supercar Championship will engineer Alex Davison’s IRWIN Ford in this year’s series. Daniel Kroehn, who has been the engineer for both Winterbottom and Steven Richards at Ford Performance Racing (FPR) over the last three years, has started at IRWIN Racing and will engineer the #4 IRWIN Ford Falcon.

Kroehn replaces David Stuart who not only manages the entire Stone Brothers Racing team but also engineered the IRWIN Tools Falcon in 2010.

The hiring of Kroehn to the SBR engineering team allows Stuart to maintain his original role of team manager, a position he held before being asked to take on additional engineering duties.

“I'm excited to have Daniel (Kroehn) onboard,” said Stone Brothers Racing Team Manager David Stuart.

“He brings a lot of engineering experience to the team and certainly strengthens our engineering base.

“He is a very welcome addition to the team and we all hope to see Alex (Davison), IRWIN and Ford benefit in 2011.

“My role this year will be to manage the team, which I have done in the past coupled with the additional duties of engineering a car.

“I won’t have to look after a car this year which will be good and bad in some respects. I enjoyed working closely with Alex, but it did take time away from managing the team, which is an extremely big job.

“The restructuring of my position will benefit everyone within the team. I’m certainly looking forward to the season ahead.”

Having spent the last seven years predominantly based in Melbourne, Kroehn is happy to have moved back to his native Queensland and to a team that has enjoyed considerable success.

“It’s exciting to be with a new team,” said IRWIN Racing engineer Daniel Kroehn.

“Stone Brothers Racing has won more V8 Championships than any other team over the last ten years, so they definitely know what to do.

“I'm looking forward to the year ahead with Alex Davison and IRWIN.”

Kroehn now gets to work understanding the intricacies of the #4 IRWIN Ford Falcon as he heads towards the season’s first test day and next month’s opening round of the 2011 V8 Supercar Championship.

“There's a lot of hard work ahead of us, it's never easy in this game anymore,” said Kroehn.

“We'll get a few things working so that we have a team that has all the cars racing competitively at the front; I’m looking forward to being a part of that.

“I haven’t met Alex (Davison) yet, he’s still on leave, but we'll get together in the next couple of days, get his thoughts on a few things and plan out the year.

“I’ve spoken to Dave (Stuart) at length. I’m currently surrounded by lots of information, working through everything from the ground up to get a clear understanding of the car, how it is designed, how it has been built and what makes it tick.

“The SBR Ford is a very different beast than I’m used to but is a quality car; that is obvious. All the key components are there; it's just a matter of putting everything together.”

Alex Davison is excited about the new engineering structure and is looking forward to working with Kroehn.

“The changes that Ross (Stone) and David (Stuart) have implemented are terrific for the IRWIN side of the garage and the team as a whole” said IRWIN Racing driver Alex Davison.

“Firstly, Daniel (Kroehn) is obviously very experienced, he is a highly credentialed and respected race engineer, so not only am I confident that he can do a good job for us, but I am really looking forward to working with him.

“Secondly, it's good for David Stuart because he will be able to concentrate on managing the engineering department and managing the team, which will benefit the whole team.

“It will enable him to do both of those jobs much more efficiently without having to engineer my car as well. There are positives all round.”

Kroehn started in his role as IRWIN Racing engineer this week. The first V8 Supercar test of the year is being held at Eastern Creek Raceway, near Sydney, on Saturday, January 29.

The opening round of the 2011 V8 Supercar Championship season is in Abu Dhabi, UAE, February 10-12.