Andrew Edwards and Will Brown celebrate pole position on Sunday. Image: Mark Horsburgh
The team revealed on Sunday morning that it had signed David Cauchi to take over from Andrew Edwards as engineer for Will Brown.
Edwards has moved into an overarching head of performance role that had been vacant since March last year, when Pete Ringwood stepped up to technical director amid Jeromy Moore’s departure.
That vacancy was exposed this year as the team’s form slumped amid an increased workload that included changing manufacturers, expanding to three cars and taking on the Ford engine program.
“We’ve had a hole since ‘JJ’ [Moore] left 18 months ago,” Triple Eight managing director Jamie Whincup explained to Speedcafe.
“We were looking to fill that hole and I wasn’t rushing into it, I just wanted to wait for the right opportunity. Our form slump sped it up a little bit and put that task higher up the priority list.
“We actively started looking in the last couple of months and it’s taken that amount of time to do the deal and make the change.”
The idea of Edwards taking the head of performance position was floated around the time the team’s slump hit its zenith in Townsville.
Edwards is renowned as one of the paddock’s best race engineers – highly competitive and capable of creating a strong bond with a driver.
Triple Eight, though, wanted him to take the vacant performance role, which it deemed harder to fill.
Jamie Whincup. Image: Richard Gresham
“[Andrew] was the first person we spoke to about it,” said Whincup.
“We said, ‘we can find somebody for that role, but we prefer to promote you up and find a race engineer’. And he said, ‘I prefer to go to the head of performance role.”
The process ramped up after Perth, where Broc Feeney ended the team’s podium drought but Brown continued to struggle.
During the period in which Triple Eight committed to changing cars for Brown and discovered the now infamous undersized restrictor, Whincup reached out to Cauchi.
Bringing Cauchi, who engineered Whincup to two championships during a previous stint at Triple Eight, back into the fold was Whincup’s “Plan A”.
“We sort of knew what we were doing two weeks ago, but only finalised it on Friday [of the Ipswich event],” said Whincup.
That created a whirlwind two days for Edwards, who was left to digest the Cauchi signing amid a race weekend where car #888 was under an immense spotlight following the restrictor revelation.
Brown and Edwards duly snapped their 12-month winless streak in the Saturday race, which led to emotional scenes on the podium and intense discussions in the paddock.
Will Brown scores victory on Saturday at Ipswich. Image: Supplied
“Andrew had made the decision [weeks earlier] and then after that crazy day on Saturday, obviously he questioned, ‘hey, am I doing the right thing?’” Whincup said.
“[The announcement] was supposed to go out at 6:30pm Saturday night. I said, ‘mate, we don’t need to rush this, let’s have a good think about it’.
“Then Sunday morning, he’s like, ‘no, I’ve had overnight to think about it. It’s the right call’, and then we made that announcement Sunday morning.”
Realistically, unless Brown himself had intervened, the die was already cast.
Cauchi was signed and due to spend Sunday at the track being reintroduced to the team, while an embargoed announcement had already been distributed to media.
Whincup acknowledged the difficulty in changing race engineers mid-season, but said there was no pushback from Brown, who was part of efforts to recruit Cauchi.
“Will is pretty easy come, easy go,” added Whincup. “I think if Andrew was leaving, he would have been concerned.”
David Cauchi took over #888 for Tuesday’s pre-enduro test. Image: Richard Gresham
The signing of Cauchi has been painted by some as an obvious move given his credentials and availability after departing Grove Racing at the end of 2025.
However, the fact he’s been hired on a part-time basis, mixing race weekend duties with his regular job with a company that runs a fleet of tyre stores, is a big shift of thinking for Triple Eight.
“We’re willing to try new things,” said Whincup.
“It could be the best thing ever, it could be a disaster. We’ll give it a five-round trial, and if it works well, we’ll continue. If it doesn’t, we won’t.
“Cauchi’s got to enjoy it as well. He’ll either go, ‘yeah, I love doing this’. Or ‘no, it’s not for me’. We’ll see how it goes in the next five rounds.”