BRT team manager steps away from Supercars
Blanchard Racing Team team manager Brendan Hogan will step away from Supercars for the foreseeable future.
Hogan is set to miss the remainder of the Supercars season, at the very least, as part of an ongoing reshuffle at the single-car squad.
His exit from BRT itself is due to personal reasons with Hogan looking to spend more time at home.
He will, however, continue as part of the wider Cooldrive business – owned by the Blanchard family – working on the Hulk four-wheel-drive suspension brand.
Fittingly Hogan's nickname in the Supercars paddock is 'Hulk'.
"We've got a big project with Cooldrive," Blanchard told Motorsport.com.
"We've just acquired a four-wheel-drive suspension business and he's keen to be heavily involved in that.
"So he's still part of the Cooldrive business, he's just going to take on a different role.
"He's an important part of our wider business, he's just going to step away from racing for a while."
Hogan joined BRT after a stint at Tickford Racing, ahead of its debut in Supercars at the start of last season.
He has overseen the BRT programme since, although was absent from the recent Sandown SuperSprint due to illness.
BRT owner and Cooldrive boss Tim Blanchard confirmed that team manager duties will be split between himself and experienced engineer and manager Mathew Nilsson for the remainder of the 2022 campaign.
He also revealed that race engineer Mirko De Rosa, who has been absent since Darwin after undergoing back surgery, will return for the Bathurst 1000.
"Matt and I will share the role until the end of the year, and Mirko is recovering well from his health issues and should be back on deck for Bathurst onwards," Blanchard added.
"So we'll be back to some sort of normality for Bathurst."
Hogan's exit comes amid a somewhat turbulent period for BRT, which has been battling inconsistent form since the trip to Perth earlier this season.
De Rosa's absence has led to some staffing issues too, with Hogan himself stepping into the race engineer role for Townsville, before Nilsson took over for The Bend, and then veteran Wally Storey bolstered the technical line-up for Sandown.
The team is facing a change on the driver front with Tim Slade expected to join PremiAir Racing after failing to agree to terms for a new BRT deal.
Lee Holdsworth was the favourite to replace Slade at BRT but has since announced his retirement.
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Top Comments
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.