Paul Ceprnich is one of V8 Supercar racing’s canniest technical gurus.

The former Paul Morris Motorsport technical manager recently established his own business, Pace Innovations, to tap the growing demand for project-based design, development and construction work for race teams. Indeed, devising better mousetraps is Ceprnich’s racing forte, with a number of V8 teams now utilising his expertise.

He spent six years overseeing design of PMM’s sweet-handling Commodores, including its new VE. Before that he worked for Stone Brothers Racing following stints overseas.

Cepi worked with motorsport engineering powerhouse Williams on BMW’s V12 sportscar program which netted, among other triumphs, victory at the fabled 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1999. His resume also includes spells with Schnitzer’s and Paul Morris’s BMW Super Touring campaigns.

Not being tied to one V8 squad enables Cepi – as he is widely known – to join V8X’s line-up of columnists for 2007. Cepi will give us an independent expert’s insight into what makes Supercars, and V8 racing in general, tick.

First up, in this special introductory column, he highlights the likely pacesetters and the technical challenges teams face in early ’07.

While it’s not really a technical issue, the amount of stress that V8 Supercar teams were under during the off-season was just out of control. It was worse this year than I’ve ever experienced because of the shortest ever off-season and the need to build new cars.

It’s an issue that has to be looked at, namely making the season start later and finish earlier. The cars are also extremely labour-intensive to build, which is something I noticed when I came to Australia. I made a point, when at PMM, to come up with better production techniques to reduce the build time. But the main problem is the short off-season, as it’s the only time teams can build cars.

People have to have a holiday at some point. To start the year with the amount of stress that everyone has gone through means everyone is behind the eight ball from the word go.

If teams are forced into making compromises in the design and build of their new cars, they will probably have to live with them for the rest of the year. It will end up costing them money.

So the Ford teams should be better off than the Holden squads and continuity is the key to success this year.

Triple Eight is the team to watch. T8 is building on a solid foundation from 2006 and is relatively unchanged. That’s such an advantage as it has been able to concentrate on development while the Holden teams have been building new cars.

It’s a similar story for FPR, providing its new driver, Steven Richards, gels quickly with them. Courtney is another who will benefit from having some continuity.

The Holdens from the Walkinshaw stable are going to be competitive. They have an advantage over all the other Holden teams, time-wise, because of being involved in the VE’s development program. The rest of the Holdens are an unknown quantity, especially as the VE is an unknown package itself.

If Lowndes is the Ford man to watch, I think Tander is the Holden man to keep a close eye on.

So, overall, I think it is going to be a little bit more of the same from last year. – Paul