Steven Richards is tipped to make the jump from Holden to Ford and drive the Caterpillar Falcon next year, however current boss Larry Perkins is likely to disallow any contract announcements until New Year’s Eve, as he did with Russell Ingall when he jumped from Perkins Engineering to Stone Brothers on January 1 2003.
Ford Performance Racing appears to have been plagued by sponsorship woes this year. At the team’s launch at the start of the season, the resplendent Ford Credit Falcon was left without a joint sponsor. In its four years in the championship, the car has had as many sponsorship alterations as it has driver changes.
When Glenn Seton debuted the car in 2003, it was fully sponsored by Ford Credit, and this arrangement continued into 2004. However with a driver swap in 2005, Greg Ritter joined the team, and so did Ford Performance Vehicles sponsorship on the side of the car. Surprisingly this FPV signage disappeared this year when Mark Winterbottom joined forces. It was replaced by GT stickers – obviously a new target for the FPV brand, but punters still raised questions on the gap left unfilled at the season launch. BroadIP joined forces with the team as of Barbagallo, but soon disappeared at Sandown, with not so much as a whisper from FPR as to why.
Regardless, the #5 Falcon has gone back to having big gold GT sponsorship on its side doors, but nonetheless fans of the factory fraternity will keenly anticipate the unveiling of the team’s 2007 Falcons.
The team should have no trouble gaining a new sponsor for the #6 Falcon, especially if team bosses throw a name such as Steve Richards into negotiations, however the total departure of Caterpillar from the team after such good performance this year is surprising. At this stage it is unclear whether the company will continue sponsorship opportunities in V8 Supercars.
But at least the stickers on your car don’t determine how fast you go…
![Winterbottom/Bright - Ford Performance Racing [Pic credit: Ford]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/272448.jpg)
