Blanchard Racing Team signs ex-Erebus engineer

De Rosa was part of the Erebus exodus at the end of 2020, departing the race-winning squad along with drivers David Reynolds and Anton De Pasquale, engineer Alistair McVean and naming rights sponsor Penrite.

His exit followed a three-season stint as the lead engineer on De Pasquale's #99 entry, which included a maiden race win in Darwin last year and three other appearances on the podium.

With a full engineering roster at De Pasquale's new home, Dick Johnson Racing, De Rosa has now made his own Ford switch.

He's set to team up with Supercars winner Tim Slade at the brand new Blanchard Racing Team, working under team manager Brendan Hogan and team boss Tim Blanchard.

“I’m really excited to start a new chapter with CoolDrive Racing, and looking forward to achieving some good results with the team,” said De Rosa.

“It’s a pretty cool opportunity to have a clean sheet of paper and to be able to implement systems and procedures from the start, which will help us down the road.

“Tim and Brendan have been really accommodating and given me a lot of freedom to be able to chase some good results.

“Now we have a couple of weeks before we hit the track, and I can’t wait to get stuck into it.”

Blanchard added that De Rosa's signing completes the staff line-up for the single-car squad, which is expected to share a pit boom with Tickford Racing at events this season.

"We are really pleased to welcome an engineer of Mirko’s calibre to CoolDrive Racing, he has already been a huge asset to the team, and he’s constantly improving results with Anton the last few years demonstrate his ability,” said Blanchard.

“I have been really pleased the way Mirko has slotted into the team and worked closely with Tim, Brendan and the whole team as we undertake this huge project.

“Mirko coming on board completes our staffing requirements for the 2021 season and is another major piece of the puzzle completed for our new team.

“It has been a busy few months since we commenced in the beginning of November, but we are very pleased with the progress we are making, in that short timeframe we have achieved some key milestones including our workshop build, team launch and now our completed staffing list.

“We are under no illusions we still have a huge amount of work ahead of us but as long as we continue to stick to our timeline, we are confident we will start the season off on the right foot.”

The CoolDrive-backed BRT outfit will debut at next month's Mount Panorama 500.