Coulthard wins Glenfords drive for 2008.

By Matthew Agius

Fabian Coulthard will succeed the retired John Bowe as the driver of the #111 Glenfords Tool Centres BF Falcon, when Paul Cruickshank Racing today announced him as the lead driver of the single-car team.

The New-Zealand born driver is a distant relation of Red Bull Racing Formula One star, David Coulthard.

He began racing in karts at six years of age, before winning his Formula Ford title and then contesting the 2003 Formula Renault Championship in Britain.

Returning to Australia in 2004, Coulthard contested the Australian Carrera Cup championship - claiming the rookie of the year award in his first season, before taking the title in the following year.

The twenty-four year old was one of many drivers signed to the Holden Young Lions program in 2006, and participated in several championship rounds with Paul Morris Motorsports.

He completed an increased workload with PMM in 2007, but was dropped after Bathurst, replaced by Owen Kelly in the #39 Commodore.

Coulthard joins Paul Cruickshank Racing's Glenfords team on a two-year contract, ensuring stability and security for the operation's racing future.

"I'm really excited about joining the Glenfords team for '08 and '09," said Coulthard.

"V8 Supercars is such a hard category to break into; the V8 racing I've done in the last couple of years gave me good grounding and made other people take notice and I'm really stoked that Paul (Cruickshank) has given me this opportunity.

"The main focus is definitely to move up the order from where we were this year, and Glenfords Racing is going to give me a more competitive car than I've ever had before, with a great engine package and now it's up to me to repay their faith.

"As a team, I think we've all got the same goal in mind and that's to go out and do the best we can and to get some great results."

Paul Cruickshank Racing will utilise an ex-Triple Eight Race Engineering chassis in 2008, and Coulthard is adamant that he will have no excuse for poor performance.

"So far, I've driven PCR's 2007 V8 and it's a lot better than what I've raced in the past, which is definitely exciting for me.

"We're looking forward to an even bigger step forward with the new Triple Eight chassis. It's a proven car that's had results this year, so there'll be no excuses.

"I've got to knuckle down and drive to the best of my ability and we should be alright - it's very positive."

Team Owner, Paul Cruickshank, is looking forward to a strong 2008 campaign, after two difficult seasons in the series so far.

"We are really excited to have a new talented young driver in our car for next year," he said.

"We have gone to great lengths putting things into to place to allow our team to develop and moving the V8 Supercar further up the grid, and Fabian is one key element in that process.

"Obviously, this is a tough game and we've had two difficult years graduating into the category, but we've paid our dues and learnt a lot of valuable lessons in the last couple of seasons.

"We are now firmly focussed on the future and moving forward."

Glenfords Racing will kick off its 2008 V8 Supercar Championship campaign at the Clipsal 500 Adelaide from February 21.