September 14, 2000
Published on tags: Superleague
A new team has entered the GPVWC to fill the slot left available when Feilerfuf-Ford were removed from the championship.

Pacific-Britten will field cars 15 and 16 on the grid - hopefully before the Australian Grand Prix.

The teams manager, Barry Gifford, has done a deal with Britten Racing to use Britten engines for the remainder of the season. It is also thought that Britten will be helping Pacific with its chassis as well.

Britten Racing have issued the following statement:

"The Britten management has been working hard over the past few weeks to secure a partnership deal with another GPVWC team to help its development.

This has been hard to achieve; however, the past few days has seen the collapse of Fielerfuff Ford, allowing entry of a new team to take its slot. Local New Zealand businessman Barry Gifford has been contacted by Britten prompting him to invest in the sport. The partnership deal between Britten and the team Gifford created, Pacific, sees the brand new Britten engine being used in his teams chassis."

This is great news for Britten also as it allows a greater resource base to compete with European and American teams, and to develop its own research programme so it can match the major F1 engine manufacturers. So far the success of Britten has been astounding, but this should accelerate things more and create a better chance of it reaching the level of the Silver Angels outfit.

Britten owner Brendon Maw said the deal was, "a great opportunity that should help to get the best out of Britten through testing also being done on its own engine by Pacific. Furthermore, already the steering technology has been the single most reason holding the team back, as cars with a cheap button interface are not contolling the cars to their limit, unlike the traditional and far more expensive wheel. We would dearly love to have all cars on the faster device, but it just isn't feasible. Hopefully the money we get from loaning our engine out will allow us to have two cars with the superior controller by about the Brazil race, if everything goes to plan. But at the moment we're all delighted with the new partnership with Pacific and look forward to working with them."

Gifford said at the announcement of his new team and the subsequent partnership deal that, "hopefully things will be in place for the Australian GP, and the sight of 4 New Zealand cars will give the event a new attendence record even with the Olympics on for sure, maybe even inspire Australian ace driver Jason Smith to a win. Whatever happens it'll be amazing to see....and I'm just pleased to be part of it."