WHEN Carl Faux turned up for his first event with what was then Mobil 1 HSV Racing, a once mighty Supercars juggernaut was at its lowest ebb.
On its knees, quite frankly.
It was the 2017 Bathurst 1000, its first Great Race since losing the HRT factory moniker to Triple Eight, and its on-track form more resembled a backmarker than a well-oiled machine.
Heck, its drivers Scott Pye and James Courtney were 18th and 19th in the points, while the champion it had just axed, Garth Tander, was flying in seventh for Garry Rogers Motorsport.
Faux would be the first to stress that he himself has not been some mystical silver bullet, but the team just so happened to collect its first podium of the season that weekend at Mount Panorama as Pye and Warren Luff finished runners-up in the 1000.
And so began the gradual climb back towards credibility.
The following year, with Michael Andretti and Zak Brown onboard as new directors, Walkinshaw Andretti United returned to the winners’ circle via Pye at Albert Park.
It then managed to convince Chaz Mostert to come across for 2020.
Bathurst 1000 success came soon enough. A championship triumph and a return to homologation team status took a little longer but both transpired too, the latter in collaboration with none other than Toyota.
“We were certainly in a far different place in 2017 and he has been instrumental in assisting our improvement,” Walkinshaw chief Bruce Stewart told V8 Sleuth of Faux, who will move on after one more Bathurst tilt this October.
“He’s such a team guy and wouldn’t like to put the focus on himself; sometimes you need to ensure that the sunlight shines on people who have been extraordinary for you, and he has been fantastic for us.
“Carl has been a driving force and we’ll be sad to see him go.
“He’s a fantastic guy and he’s a unicorn in his knowledge and expertise, but he also has got a big heart and is a deep thinker.
“To just paint him as an engineering guru wouldn’t be truthful to the breadth he has got, in regard to what he has delivered for us.
“He’s going to go onto great opportunities, potentially abroad… there comes times where you have to let people fly and take the next step in their career and what they’re looking to achieve.
“So we’ll miss him, but he’s always going to be considered part of our team.”
Bruce Stewart. Pic: Walkinshaw TWG Racing
Faux is these days Walkinshaw TWG Racing’s team principal, having been promoted from technical director in late 2023.
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Who is Carl Faux?
Stewart was simultaneously installed as CEO, and feels Faux has been the yin to his yang in their quest to “take a once great team into a position of being extraordinarily strong again”.
“Hopefully we can give him a really strong whiff of Australian sparking all over his uniform when he leaves,” said Stewart.
“He’s not the kind of guy to get emotional because he’s such a racer; he’s like ‘we’ll talk about it later’. I respect that.
“Again, yin-and-yang for me, I’m probably the more emotional one and he’s quite clinical and very decisive in a lot of his ideas and how he operates.”
Walkinshaw TWG has not yet clarified how it will go about filling Faux’s shoes, but Stewart expressed confidence that the Clayton crew will keep charging forward.
“I do also want to say that sport has an amazing way of showing you the strength you have in other people in your team, and we showed it in New Zealand when Carl wasn’t there,” said the proud Kiwi.
“I was blown away, and I know that Ryan and Martine (Walkinshaw) were, in the way other people stood up.
“And that’s testament to Carl as well, because people can make that step and have the knowledge and confidence to be able to make it when there is someone not there.
“I don’t kid myself that it wouldn’t happen exactly the same for me or anyone else in the team and that’s a wonderful thing. Because this is not about an individual; it’s about a team.”
This weekend’s NTI Townsville 500 is the first event since Faux’s impending departure became public.
Supercars track action starts today, culminating in a 35-lap sprint race from 4:15pm.