John McIntyre Racing secures championship-winning technical director

Hot on the heels of announcing Kiwi V8 Supercar star Steven Richards to drive the second John McIntyre Racing V8SuperTourer, the team has also secured the talents of Campbell Little as technical director.

Fans of the Australian V8 Supercar Championship will know that Little has been an integral component in the success of leading V8SC teams Stone Brothers Racing and Vodafone Triple Eight each winning two V8SC championships. He was SBR's first employee when established by Kiwi brothers Ross and Jimmy Stone and lead the team to championship victory with star driver Marcus Ambrose. Among the many race wins, Little has also contributed to five Bathurst victories with these teams.

Now with Ford Performance Racing in V8SC, Little is also sharing his more than 20 years of technical race-craft with John McIntyre Racing for the inaugural season of V8SuperTourer racing in New Zealand.

Nelson-based team owner and driver John McIntyre says he's delighted that Little has joined JMR.

"I have chosen to work with Campbell because of his incredible technical expertise, massive experience and his passion for the project," says McIntyre from the team's Taupo base.

"JMR are arming ourselves with the best possible technical and engineering team by having Campbell working alongside our New Zealand-based engineering guru Jason Liefting. The V8SuperTourer championship is going to be incredibly hard-fought – the last tenth of a second or two of speed from these cars will be due nailing the tiny details. Both Campbell and Jason are known for their meticulous attention to detail; they've worked together before and I'm thrilled to have this phenomenal technical resource for JMR's 2012 V8SuperTourer campaign."

Little is also pleased to work with McIntyre, Steven Richards and Liefting on JMR's new V8SuperTourer programme.

"It's really good to be part of JMR and I've known John and Steve a long time. I've also worked with Jason with some Toyota Racing Series teams and at Triple Eight – he's a good guy and very versatile in his abilities."

Little has many positive comments to make about the V8SuperTourers as a class. "In a lot of ways the V8SuperTourer is similar to a V8 Supercar – certainly its DNA is V8SC, but the V8SuperTourer guys have picked the eyes out of the good parts of a V8SC. They've simplified things, made the cars friendlier, I guess you could say, to run with fewer full-on engineers than you need to do well in V8SC. So although the cars are different and the engines too, I can bring some experience to the team which is going to be positive."

Little is with JMR at present while they undertake their first test session at Taupo Motorsport Park. JMR is the first V8SuperTourer team to complete building one of their race cars, and this week, they become the first team to hit the track for intensive testing with their race car. The #47 FG Falcon V8SuperTourer that McIntyre will race in the seven-round championship is being run by McIntyre and Richards over the three-day test while Little and Liefting fine-tune the engineering side of things.