"Two years ago I spoke to Chaz's ex-manager Dave Ellis," he explained.
Walkinshaw also revealed that the plan to sign Mostert was years in the making. "Coming into a team and progressing that team forward, and being part of that growth and success, I think would mean a lot more to some people." The reward for doing that is significant. "He wanted to be a part of something and grow something big. He didn't want to be another guy jumping in a car that was already fast, and everyone is sitting there saying 'you're only going fast because that car was already fast and you have good engineers'. We want you to be what Scott McLaughlin was for Penske. "We explained to him, 'you're going to come to our team, be the lead driver, and we'll build the team around you'. "So – and you'd have to ask Chaz this, I hope I'm not speaking out of turn – one of the key drivers for him coming to us was that we explained to him that Scott McLaughlin going to DJR Team Penske was the turning point for that team.
And one, or a couple, of successful drivers in their team. "I won't go into which teams were chasing him, but if you look at, they already had a pretty strong engineering set up. "That was really important to us, and it turned out that was really important to Chaz as well. "So it was him and Adam, or we're not interested. "One of the key things for us, and fortunately one of the key things for him, was that it was a package or nothing," said Walkinshaw. The other was the opportunity to help turn the team back into a winner, similar to what Scott McLaughlin did at DJRTP. In the latest episode of the Below the Bonnet podcast, WAU director Walkinshaw explained how his team fended off stiff competition to sign Mostert.Īccording to Walkinshaw, one key factor was the promise of a job for Mostert's engineer Adam De Borre. DJR Team Penske was long considered the front-runner for Mostert's signature, until mid-way through 2019 when it became clear a shock move to Walkinshaw Andretti United was on the cards.
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