Can DJR still be a Supercars powerhouse after Penske?

Roger Penske's whirlwind Australian Supercars sojourn is over. After six seasons, three drivers' titles, three teams' championships and a Bathurst 1000 crown, The Captain has sold his controlling stake in Dick Johnson Racing back to the squad and walked away from the category.

Given that his input helped DJR reclaim its powerhouse status, it's natural that Penske's departure has cast doubt over the immediate future of a team we've become so used to seeing at the front of the field, team leader Scott McLaughlin responding to his title near-miss of 2017 with three on the spin.

The question is, will DJR still be a Supercars heavyweight in its first post-Penske season? To properly gauge what the Penske exit means for Dick Johnson Racing you need to look at what Team Penske brought to it in the first place.

When Penske took a 51% stake in DJR ahead of the 2015 season, the team was in a bad way. The glory days had mostly been left in the 1980s and 1990s, and even James Courtney's impressive 2010 title had become a distant memory.

The team's roster between 2012 and 2014 included the likes of Dean Fiore, Jonny Reid, Tim Blanchard and David Wall - all fine drivers, but none of them the credentialed winners that you'd expect to see driving the famous DJR Falcons. Apart from an unexpected win at Queensland Raceway for loanee Chaz Mostert in 2013, it was a lean old run for the once mighty DJR.

Then along came Penske. With his controlling share he was able to set the transformation in motion. It was no silver bullet, particularly with the early progress slowed by the failed experiment of bringing 2003-04 champion Marcos Ambrose back from NASCAR. But that setback highlighted the need to a) re-expand to two cars, and b) hire the best of the best if DJR Team Penske was going to run down Roland Dane's formidable Triple Eight Race Engineering squad.

The investment was there to make it all happen. During the 2015 season a second Racing Entitlements Contract was obtained and a now-flush DJR set the driver market pace. It was an open secret that the team's primary target, at Ambrose's recommendation, was McLaughlin. When it became clear he'd stay true to Garry Rogers Motorsport and see out his contract, race winner Fabian Coulthard - the man of the silly season hour as he'd come off contract at Brad Jones Racing - was signed to partner Scott Pye for 2016.

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A year later DJRTP finally got its man, Volvo's exit from Supercars helping pry McLaughlin out of his happy home at GRM. Those deep Penske pockets were given another workout during preparations for the 2017 season when the team successfully went after Triple Eight's technical guru Ludo Lacroix. The dream team was finally assembled and the wins and titles flowed over the four seasons that followed.

There's little doubt the team is much better placed commercially than it was pre-DJRTP era, even without the Penske money tap. An astute businessman like Story wouldn't have kept the team alive if he didn't see the potential for profit

Hiring those two race-winning drivers and the man that was widely regarded as Triple Eight's secret sauce - who didn't come cheap - showed the Penske investment at work. It was the direct result of there being no pressure for the DJRTP venture to make money. That's not to say it was all outgoings though. Penske opened a lot of commercial doors, while DJRTP's managing director Ryan Story is no slouch in the business world himself.

Between that, and fuelled by the team's on-track momentum, a good commercial package was put together led by the title backing from local Shell licensee Viva Energy. But as good as the commercial package was - and still is - it was always widely thought to be worth less than what the team spent each season. The sponsorship was a kind of damage limitation for Penske, but the true name of the game was helping Penske expand his non-motorsport business footprint down under. As long as there was profit to be made elsewhere, the race outfit didn't need to turn one.

What's harder to directly quantify is how much technical input came out of Mooresville over the six years Team Penske was involved. It's something that, thanks to the strict Supercars regulations, has been shrouded in secrecy and prompted flare-ups of controversy.

The first blow-up was before Penske even bought into DJR. When negotiations turned serious, Penske asked the team to send a car Stateside so his men could take a closer look. As per Supercars rules the car was stripped of a number of control components and approval was given for the car to leave Australian soil. At least until other teams caught wind of the plan midway through 2014 and argued that, while it was within the letter of the law, it wasn't within the spirit of the rules. The furore ended in threats that if the car left Australia, the Supercars Board might not approve the sale of the DJR RECs to Penske.

The nasty stand-off left the Captain to seriously reconsider getting involved at all. The saga set the tone for a tension between Penske and Supercars over those strict regulations that simmered throughout his tenure in the category. It wasn't until mid-2019 that a de-registered, stripped back DJRTP Supercar finally made it to the US to act as a moving show car for Ford Performance and Penske. More cars have recently followed as part of the DJR/Penske divorce.

Penske's access to things like shaker rigs and windtunnels, both banned in Supercars, were a six-year source of anxiety for DJRTP's rivals. Not that there was ever any hard evidence that the rules were flouted and those high-powered tools were employed to help either develop the FG-X Falcon or design the Mustang. Anyway, as hard as it is to quantify, the likelihood is that Penske's technical muscle played a very real, very significant role in the development of the cars across the seasons it was involved.

Along with resources both financial and technical, the Penske tie-up also helped facilitate Ford's return to the category. Penske himself made it clear when he came into the category that talking Ford into re-opening its wallet was a priority. Ford did return and DJRTP nabbed the homologation team role off Tickford Racing in the process. That led to the undoubtedly successful collaboration to design and develop the controversial Mustang.

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So where does Penske's recent departure leave DJR? In terms of investment this isn't a hard reset. There's little doubt the team is much better placed commercially than it was pre-DJRTP era, even without the Penske money tap. An astute businessman like Story wouldn't have kept the team alive if he didn't see the potential for profit.

But the difference isn't always made at an operating budget level, it's the ability to do what it takes. That's not a short-term problem - the cars won't fall off a cliff in terms of speed - but could become an issue as the 2021 season wears on. The exact same thing goes for whatever technical leg-up was coming out of Mooresville. The highly developed DJR Mustang won't necessarily suffer in the short term, but if things get tight and an arms race breaks out...

A dulling of both the technical and financial firepower may not be seen as a huge disadvantage in what is the final year of a ruleset. With Gen3 coming in 2022, it's easy to assume development will slow to a crawl as the current Mustangs and Commodores hurtle towards the end of their lifecycle.

But things don't always work like that in professional sport. Perhaps Triple Eight will see the Penske exit as a weakness it can exploit. A levelling of the resources playing field. Or perhaps even the scales tipping back in T8's favour.

It's not all bad news, though. Had the Penske exit sparked an exodus of local staff the alarm bells might be ringing. But Story will still be running the show. Ben Croke is still leading the operational line, in what's now the team principal role. McLaughlin's departure for Penske's IndyCar team creates some uncertainty, but it would seem DJR is well placed in terms of drivers - with new signings Anton De Pasquale and Will Davison replacing Team Sydney-bound Coulthard - to answer the question of whether McLaughlin alone was the 'X factor' for the DJRTP dominance.

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Former Erebus man De Pasquale is similarly placed to where McLaughlin was when he came to DJR. He's seen as the next big thing and this is his big break. The only question mark over De Pasquale is that, given the close ties between his manager Paul Morris and Roland Dane, why didn't Triple Eight ever make a play for him?

It's important to note that Ford didn't follow Penske out the door either. Ford Performance is poised to have a hand in that Gen3 Mustang development over the coming year

Two-time Bathurst winner Davison, meanwhile, is a safe pair of hands who's won races and challenged for titles. Sure, he's closer to the end of his career than to the start of it, but he should provide a more than fair benchmark for De Pasquale.

Between a rising star looking to make his mark, and a proven veteran eyeing what may be his final chance in a front-running Supercars machine, DJR is about as well placed as it could be in terms of drivers. And the biggest staffing win is that Lacroix is still there to both lead the engineering unit and help develop the Gen3-spec Mustang.

It's important to note that Ford didn't follow Penske out the door either. Ford Performance is poised to have a hand in that Gen3 Mustang development over the coming year. That doesn't just broaden the technical expertise involved in the project but lightens the load on DJR as a race team. Triple Eight, meanwhile, will be doing the heavy lifting for the Camaro project directly alongside its 2021 race programme. In that respect, DJR may be better placed.

In the same way that Penske buying into the team wasn't a silver bullet, Penske's exit won't immediately burst the bubble of momentum. DJR is still well financed, well staffed and well placed to begin the season right in the mix.

Will it be the unstoppable force it was through the McLaughlin era? Perhaps not. Will it still be a powerhouse alongside Triple Eight? In the short term, at the very least, there's absolutely no reason why not.