Quote:
Originally Posted by DV_08
What happened with the Volvo Dealer Team? After winning the ATCC, they missed the first two enduros and missed practice for the Castrol 500. I was just watching the Castrol 500 recently and I'm guessing Robbie was sacked after refusing to start the race. There must of been some huge internal problems.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Amaroo Park
The story at the time was that Robbie and John Sheppard did not see eye to eye, Sheppard took contol of the team at the begining of 1986
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That pretty much sums it up. I think Francevic was beginning to feel marginalised in the team, not getting to do as much testing as he wanted, not feeling like he was being treated as the number one driver in the team once John Bowe came aboard full time. According to the two yearbooks the team skipped the first two enduros while it built a new car, but when it became clear the cars were still not quite ready at Sandown the tension between Francevic and Sheppard came to a head. Francevic made remarks to either motoring journos or Volvo management (or both) complaining and recommending the car be scratched from the race due to the lack of track time, and was quietly sacked by Sheppard soon after.
The team (and for that matter, most of Volvo's Group A activity) was wound up soon after Bathurst, where Francevic was driving a Ford Sierra for Mark Petch.
Speaking of Mark Petch, since he's on this forum I wonder what light he could shed on how his team became the Volvo Dealer Team, and the hows and whys of Robbie's departure.