Mark Dutton; Triple Eight Race Engineering Team Manager talks season results, finals format and more.

We managed to get a short one-on-one interview with RedBull Ampol Racing's Team Manager Mark Dutton, also known as 'Dutto'. Dutton is the current team manager for the RedBull Ampol Racing team, having been promoted in 2014. He has previously led V8 Supercars star, Jamie Whincup to multiple championships as his race engineer.

RedBull Ampol Racing (Triple Eight Race Engineering) Team Manager Mark Dutton.

Now as their Team Manager, Dutton has the very important role of communicating between the two race engineers from either side of the teams garages during a race. He described it as being "A Dad and so long as the kids play nice, everything goes according to plan". This is so the team is able to work as smoothly as possible, especially when you are a team like Triple Eight Race Engineering. He is essentially the branching communication between the two groups within the team. Everyone works on the car together and it is all about being one big group with open communication in order for the weekend to work out. He also works on car control, specifically during the pitstops.

The Finals series was a brand new concept for the Supercars Series, and we had to ask the big question; had Dutton spoken to their ex-successor Shane Van-Gisbergen and asked for any advice on the concept given that the NASCAR has the similar format. Dutton confirmed that he has not spoken to him, but that does not mean that the engineers or anyone else have spoken to him about it. Finals series is very different, with the previous seasons it was similar to most motorsport series, where it is the driver with the most points accumulated over the season, wins the championship. Before this finals format, by now you would have a clear top 3 or 4 drivers with the possibility to win the championship. Now Dutton discussed the importance of a good race weekend stating, "even if you have a really good season up until the finals, one mistake can rule you out".

We spoke about their brilliant driver pairing of Broc Feeney and Will Brown. Given their drivers currently are first and fifth, they are determined to get both through to the final 4. The teams main goal for this weekend which would guarentee their drivers a spot in Adelaide would be to get both of their drivers through with a win each this weekend. A win for each of their drivers, ensures that both are through to the final in Adelaide.

Having only three days to pack up and move between Sandown and Adelaide, this is a small margin. This would mean the team is quickly forced to maneuver between the Sandown 500 weekend and those results to focusing on the Adelaide Grand Final. The team is not doing much to prepare as of yet, but they have started the little things. They simply need to ensure that they are in the finals. The team has to remain focused, with no downtime between now and Adelaide and just keep the focus.

Their main focus once Sandown is over, is ensuring they are through to Adelaide firstly and secondly will be to ensure that they have clean cars for that race weekend. This makes the prep time much easier for the team, as it is fully focused on performance and not so much on repairs needed.

The team championship for them is basically solid, and they are pretty good on that. so as mentioned their main focus is purely looking onto the weekend and focusing on maximising points and possible race win opportunities too. The team looks ready and prepped for the weekend, having been seen unpacking yesterday before the practice sessions today.