Bright opens up on PRA switch

Supercars veteran Jason Bright hopes the smooth transition back to Prodrive Racing (Australia) can be turned into immediate results on the racetrack.

The former Brad Jones Racing driver spent two years at PRA when it was known as Ford Performance Racing from 2005 to 2006 running as a two-car squad at the time.

Despite 11 years passing since then, a number of familiar faces remain at the expanded outfit including teammate Mark Winterbottom.

“I caught up with them all before Christmas and went to the Christmas party, went around the workshop,” Bright told Supercars.com.

“It’s been a little bit easier being Melbourne compared to driving up to Albury to do that. There’s still quite a few familiar faces there, but quite a lot of new ones. Certainly, a lot of key people are still very familiar to me from my time there 10 years ago.

“Teammate-wise, Frosty is still there, and I’ve always had a good relationship with him. I feel like the transition has been an easier one than normal when you change teams.

“When I was there last time, it was just two cars in the main game – myself and Frosty. It was a much smaller group of guys and not as much of what they do (now) was done in-house.”

With Bright set to drive the #56 MEGA Racing entry under his own Racing Entitlements Contract, he admits a sense of familiarity helped get the deal over the line very quickly.

“If you look at the main people that are there, whether it’s Tim Edwards, Tooley (Team manager Chris O’Toole), Matty Roberts, Frosty, they were all there when I was there,” Bright continued.

“There’s a lot of new faces as far as mechanics on the cars and engineers, but there’s still quite a lot of familiar guys there. I think that’s a good thing.

“They know me, I know them and I think that’s why when the opportunity of this deal came about, it was a quick decision from both sides.”

Bright previously took to the wheel of Garry Jacobson’s Dunlop Series FG X Falcon but will have his first drive of his new car at the Sydney Motorsport Park test on February 21.

“I had a drive of the car back in December for 10 laps, and I was very impressed with what I felt,” he added.

“Having spent a lot of time with them over those few days learning where their setup is compared to where I’ve been, I was quite surprised how different the car felt.

“I felt very confident in the car straight away, and I spent some time with the engineers and it was good to understand the way they’ve gone about it, because every team is a bit different. I certainly liked what I saw.”