{"id":479215,"date":"2026-02-14T09:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T09:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/479215\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T09:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T09:40:18","slug":"bathurst-winning-lowndes-engineer-aiding-corvettes-tilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/479215\/","title":{"rendered":"Bathurst-winning Lowndes engineer aiding Corvette\u2019s tilt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CRAIG Lowndes\u2019 last full-time Supercars engineer has returned to the Mountain as part of Corvette\u2019s highly anticipated Bathurst 12 Hour debut.<\/p>\n<p>John \u2018Irish\u2019 McGregor is on deck as race engineer for the Pro class #2 Johor Motorsports Racing Z06 GT3.R of Alexander Sims, Nicky Catsburg and Earl Bamber.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s his first time at Mount Panorama since guiding <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-6-Craig-Lowndes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Craig Lowndes<\/a> and Steven Richards to victory in the 2018 Bathurst 1000, and he returns with a team that is comprised of many former Triple Eight staff.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/News_IrishJMR-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-247357\"  \/>John McGregor. Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt strangely feels like home,\u201d McGregor told V8 Sleuth. \u201cYou walk up and down pit lane and see loads of people I used to know. It\u2019s very nice to be back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBetween pitlane and the team itself, it feels like I\u2019m back here with Triple Eight!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McGregor took over as Lowndes\u2019 Supercars engineer in late 2016 after DJR Team Penske-bound Ludo Lacroix was placed on gardening leave.<\/p>\n<p>After a rocky 2017 in which Lowndes went winless in Supercars, the combination clicked in 2018.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/News_IrishT8-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-247358\"  \/>Lowndes and McGregor celebrate after winning the Symmons Plains round in 2018. Pic: an1images.com \/ Scott Wensley<\/p>\n<p>McGregor guided Lowndes to a solo race win at Symmons Plains and his Bathurst victory with Steven Richards, the team overcoming a persistent power steering problem to win Lowndes\u2019 seventh and Richards\u2019 fifth victories in the event.<\/p>\n<p>McGregor remained with Lowndes through to the end of \u201918, after which point the Brit headed to the United States to work with Porsche in the IMSA SportsCar Championship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I left Supercars, I went and did two years in IMSA with the Porsche factory team, and then I went back to Europe and went to Manthey,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/2026-meguiars-bathurst-12-hour-official-program?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2026-12-hour-program_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was with them for two years, and then I was with Porsche Penske Motorsport the past three years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was pretty much always with the factory stuff, just different teams that were running it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m back on the cans, race engineering this weekend. I\u2019ve had a different role for a couple of years and haven\u2019t done it, but it\u2019s nice to be back here and doing it again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been a circumspect start to the Bathurst 12 Hour campaign for the #2 Corvette, placing 23rd and 21st in the two all-in practice sessions on Friday and qualifying 25th and 26th for Sunday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n<p>The same can\u2019t be said about the debut of GM\u2019s archrival Ford; its Haupt Racing Team-run Mustang GT3 placed 18th and 17th in the corresponding Friday sessions, but qualified third-fastest for the Pole Battle.<\/p>\n<p>Additional reporting by Connor O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CRAIG Lowndes\u2019 last full-time Supercars engineer has returned to the Mountain as part of Corvette\u2019s highly anticipated Bathurst&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-479215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}