Motorsport: Kiwi driver gets the best

Shane Van Gisbergen is an exceptionally focused and talented driver, says Steve Hallam. Pictures/supplied

Van Gisbergen's skills help lure management ace to Tekno team

When you want to put a spanner in the works of a motor-racing team, the man to hire is Steve Hallam. He's been there, undone that and done it up again in Formula One, Nascar and V8 Supercars.

So when the Webb family, owners of Tekno Autosports, got the whisper that Hallam was leaving Walkinshaw Racing at the end of last season, they raced to sign the expat Brit.

That's how they gained access to a man who's been at the top of engineering and management with the Lotus and McLaren F1 teams, Michael Waltrip Racing's Nascar outfit and had a hand in the resurrection of James Courtney's career with HRT.

Gold Coast-based Tekno, established in the early 2000s to support the racing careers of Stephen Webb and later his son Jonathon, runs the one-car team behind Shane Van Gisbergen.

It uses a Holden VF Commodore chassis built by Triple Eight Race Engineering.

For Hallam, the Kiwi driver was a big plus in the deal.

"You're always looking for an opportunity where you can make something better," he said.

"My focus in moving to Tekno was the team but a massive drawcard was the driver.

"He's exceptionally focused and talented, and most of all he loves driving and wants to be in the car all the time. He's very honest with us about what the car's doing and you can't ask for more than that.

"He reminds me a little of Kimi Raikkonen, in that Shane has the talent and the same sort of honesty.

"Working here is wonderful, as everyone has a great desire to provide the best car we can for Shane to race in."

Hallam has been in and around motorsport for most of his life and the novelty hasn't worn off.

Steve Hallam (centre) with Shane Van Gisbergen (left) and Jonathon Webb.

"There always has to be a reason to get out of bed in the morning and motorsport is mine. The build-up to qualifying and then the race is always there, and then there's the elation of a successful execution of a race plan, and that's what I enjoy.

"Managing any team is much the same. It's about getting the most out of the resources you have, and over the years I have seen a lot of resource wasted. It's about getting the best people and spending the money you have wisely and delivering the most performance you can from the car."

Single-seater racing is generally regarded as the blue riband of motorsport and saloon car racing is looked down on, but Hallam doesn't differentiate.

"Technically there is no difference between the two. There is no difference in the effort needed to get whatever the car is to be at its best. Sure, the budgets are different, but you have to do the very best you can with what you've got.

"The technicality of what makes a car work is much the same no matter what you're in. The laws of physics are no different in Formula One than they are in V8 Supercars. The only contact any racing car has with the road are the four tyres. The role of an engineer is to manage those four tyres and get them to deliver to the driver what he wants."

Hallam agrees that if a team wants to be the best on the track, everyone in the crew has to want to beat his opposite number, even if it's in sweeping the garage.

"I often have used the analogy that if you take a vertical cut through the team, everyone has an opposite number. I have said to the boys that on one level we're competing against the others as a group, but you as individuals are also competing against your opposite number in 24 other garages.

"And you need to know that when you go to bed at night that you have done the best you can."