IRWIN Racing announces team change.

IRWIN Racing has announced that Marcus Clarke is to take on the role of race engineer for the Ford Falcon of Marcus Marshall from the next round of the V8 Supercar Championship in Queensland.

Clarke, who has been part of the Britek Motorsport organisation for the past 14 months as the chief engineer on its rally programme and also held the role of V8 motorsports manager, will take the place of Greg Foletta who has left the team.

"Making this change was far from easy," team principal Jason Bright said. "Greg has been an integral member of the IRWIN Racing crew over the last 18 months. We wish him all the best in his pursuits in either the motor sports or the automotive industry.

"Marcus has the right mix of experience and determination to take on the role with the IRWIN Racing team."

Clarke himself said he was ready for the new challenge created by his change in jobs.

"The team has been doing a good job," he said. "The V8 Supercar Championship is a very tough category. You can't expect to jump into the top ten straight away, but we are on the rise. We all want to continue the improvement and look towards strong results in the second half of the season. Queensland Raceway will be a challenge, but we have plenty of experience to get on top of any challenges."

The Queensland event will mark Marshall's home round of the season and the former Champ Car racer said he didn't feel that the change in personnel within the team would affect him during the weekend.

"Despite the significant change in our engineering department, I don't see it affecting my confidence or that of the team," he said. "The recent round at Darwin was pretty good for us and we are confident of a far better result at Queensland Raceway.

"I have driven that many laps around there that I could do it in my sleep. However, there are so many Queensland-based drivers in the series I don't have a huge advantage. It's more about me having more confidence with the IRWIN Racing crew to ensure we tune the car to get the most out of it."