Jayden Ojeda raced for WAU at the enduros. Image: Richard Gresham
The GT star will make his PremiAir Racing debut at Sandown as part of a two-event cameo in place of Richie Stanaway, who was dumped after the Gold Coast.
The unexpected call-up forced a late change of plans for Ojeda who had to pull out of the final round of the Super Taikyu Series at Fuji, Japan, which also takes place this weekend.
The Sandown and Adelaide outings will be a welcome head start for both team and driver before they link up for Ojeda’s rookie Supercars season next year.
But even ahead of Sandown, work on getting Ojeda embedded into the PremiAir stable began.
Andrew Gilliam, who is set to be Ojeda’s race engineer for the rest of this season and all of next, made a cameo of his own as engineer on the Tigani Motorsport Mercedes that Ojeda and Paul Lucchitti campaigned at the Australian GT finale at Hampton Downs last week.
It was the first time Gilliam and Ojeda had worked together as a driver/engineer combo, and left Ojeda excited about the relationship.
“I think he’s got an awesome attitude,” Ojeda told Speedcafe.
“He’s obviously a very capable driver in his own rights – probably better than I am on the sim, so I think that’s a really good tool that he’s got in his toolbox of being able to understand things from from a driver’s point of view.
“He’s really, really smart as well when it comes to theory behind things, and just got that attitude of being a sponge and wanting to learn, and wanting to soak it all up each step of the way.
“I got to see that firsthand at Hampton Downs. He hadn’t done any GT3 engineering before that point and he really applied himself as good as I could have hoped.
“I’m a rookie, he’s a rookie in terms of the engineering world as well. So we’re going to be learning and leaning on each other. It’s not all going to be smooth sailing, there’ll be some bumps in the road.
“But the important thing is that we’ve both got a lot of confidence in each other to learn and grow together.”
Heading into what will be his first solo Supercars round since his wildcard campaign with Walkinshaw Andretti United in 2022, Ojeda has clear, realistic goals.
“It’ll be new for me,” he added.
“I haven’t done a solo round since 2022 and I’m at a different point in my career now to what I was back then.
“I’ve learned a lot, especially about these longer races. The 250-kilometre races are no sprint race, so it’s about understanding the way Supercars go racing at the moment, and what’s important to get the result.
“I think [the expectations] are probably more around feeling, how I feel within the car, within the team, and within the field of cars as well.
“The big thing is just feeling like we’re making progress and basically putting ourselves in good shape for next year.
“There’s no expectation for me to go out there and set the world on fire. The goal is to make sure we roll out in 2026 in a better position.”
