David Cauchi and Will Brown. Image: InSyde Media
The team swung a dramatic mid-season move in August when it shifted Andrew Edwards off Brown’s car and into the previously vacant head of performance role.
David Cauchi was recruited to take up race engineering duties on Brown’s car on a part-time basis, fitting the largely weekend-based work around his existing position with the DMH Group.
The decision raised eyebrows in part because Triple Eight had not previously run a part-time race engineer model.
Both the team and Cauchi made clear the arrangement is in place for the remainder of 2026 only.
Triple Eight has this week placed an advert on employment website Seek looking for a full-time race engineer.
Although happy with how the team is positioned ahead of the Bathurst 1000 and Finals Series, technical director Pete Ringwood confirmed the squad is in need of a full-timer.
“We’ve obviously relocated pretty publicly some positions, including the head of performance, which we’re all pretty rapt about,” Ringwood told Speedcafe.
“Cauchi has stepped in, which is great. He’s always told us he’s there on the weekends, he’s not here in the workshop.
“So one of the things we’re looking at doing is having the capability of a full-time role, so we’re advertising and looking wide.
“We’ve got a million projects on, part of that is homologation, part of it is many other things.
“In-person, full-time works better for how we structure our team.”
Cauchi was available mid-season after walking away from the sport at the end of 2025, having left his post as team principal at Grove Racing seeking a lifestyle change.
He had only just started his position as chief operating officer for DMH, which operates 11 Bridgestone stores in Queensland, when Triple Eight came calling.
Although the team has gone to market with the role, Ringwood isn’t quite ready to rule out Cauchi staying on.
“We haven’t made that call yet,” he said.
“Cauchi very publicly has two jobs at the moment. He’s got a race engineer role with us but he also has another job.
“We don’t want to be in a position where we want him full-time but he’s also got something else full-time, that’s no good for anyone.
“It’s definitely not the intention that we’re trying to move Cauchi on.
“We would take the guy, but we recognise he’s helping out in the short term while we restructure our team.”
Ringwood said the team has no plans to break up the partnership between Broc Feeney and Martin Short, who were first paired together in Super2 in 2021.