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Roger Penske not opening the door on Bathurst wild card entries yet

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Majority shareholder of DJR Team Penske and American racing icon Roger Penske has said that he is still closed to the idea of running a wild card for some of his other drivers at Bathurst, preferring to put the team’s efforts into winning their first Bathurst 1000.

After buying a 51% stake of Dick Johnson Racing in 2014 and entering the series as a single-car outfit in 2015, the past few years have seen the superteam win the team’s championship in 2017 and the driver’s championship with Scott McLaughlin in 2018.

With the south-east Queensland squad now on track to take both titles in 2019, Penske was asked whether he’d be open to letting his drivers across his American Indycar, IMSA and NASCAR programs to come and try out the Supercars Championship.

In a press conference with Walkinsaw Andretti United’s owners (Ryan Walkinshaw, Michael Andretti and Zak Brown) as well as Triple Eight’s Roland Dane

Surrounded by Triple Eight’s Roland Dane and Ryan Walkinshaw, Michael Andretti and Zak Brown from Walkinshaw Andretti United (currently fielding a wild card entry for Indycar stars Alexander Rossi and James Hinchcliffe), Penske said he didn’t want anything to detract from the efforts of DJR Team Penske to win at Mount Panorama.

“Michael (Andretti) talked to me about maybe getting Will (Power) over here when he decided to do a wild card”, he said.

“I think from our perspective, with all the racing we’re doing and knowing how competitive it is… to take any focus off this race… I think we’re better off running two cars.

“It’s always something in the future but we haven’t won this race and the focus we want is on that. Maybe in another event we might do that but I’d say I don’t see it in the future at the moment.”

When asked about defending series champion Scott McLaughlin’s ambitions to venture to the USA and try other forms of motorsport, Penske said the focus for the Kiwi and the team is on the current job at hand.

“I think he (Scott) had a job to do here and in the last two years he’s made a big difference in the team,” Penske said.

“One think I want to make clear here is that it’s not just McLaughlin; (Fabian) Coulthard has done a great job too and so have all the other people who surround the team.

“Scott has set the pace for us, as far as his interests in the US. With his age and his capabilities it would be great but at this point we have to focus on what we’re committed to here with our sponsors as we go forward.

“Seeing (Alexander) Rossi and these guys come over, he asked why we can’t do the same thing and go the other way.”

Penske then turned to Dane with a tongue-in-cheek offer to run an Indycar wild card but with similar restrictions to what the Supercars entrants have to deal with.

“I thought I’d say to Roland (Dane) that Michael and I have gotten together and we want to offer a wild card at Indy (500); he can come over and have three days of testing, three sets of tyres… we just want to know who would be his drivers and maybe we’ll give him an extra bit of wicker when he needs it!”

“Maybe I can have the engine you did in 1994,” Dane replied, referring to the Ilmor-Mercedes engine which Penske ran at the Indy 500 that year, exploiting a loophole in the regulations and leading to a ban for the motor the next year.

The DJR Team Penske entry of Fabian Coulthard and Tony D’Alberto will be starting the Bathurst 10:00 from 16th tomorrow while McLaughlin provisionally qualified on pole, having to replicate that in this afternoon’s Top Ten Shootout at 17:05 local time.