GENERAL Motors has just been crowned Supercars’ champion manufacturer for the fifth successive season but it faces an uphill battle to extend that streak next year.

Chevrolet is losing not only Triple Eight and Brad Jones Racing to rivals this summer but also race-winning drivers Broc Feeney, Will Brown, Nick Percat, André Heimgartner and Cameron Hill.

The only incumbent it will have from the top half of the 2025 championship standings is Team 18’s Anton De Pasquale.

The remaining seven full-time Camaros will be piloted by David Reynolds (Team 18), Jack Le Brocq, Zach Bates (both Matt Stone Racing), Cooper Murray, Jobe Stewart (both Erebus Motorsport), Jayden Ojeda and Declan Fraser (both PremiAir Racing).

Chevrolet will at least boast enduro star power through Craig Lowndes and James Courtney.

GM Motorsports’ Supercars racing program manager Simon McNamara acknowledges there is work to be done, but is not exactly putting a line through 2026.

“I think if you go Bathurst specifically, the best team at Bathurst for the last number of years would be Erebus,” McNamara told V8 Sleuth last month.

“Barry (Ryan) has done a great job, certainly with who he has got driving there next year, they’re two young guys who have proven themselves to be more than capable.

“There’s some experience with Anton and Dave, and then some new-old blood at PremiAir, and at Matt Stone it’s good to see Zach there. We have got a good mix between experience and youth.

“There’s no reason why we can’t be there or thereabouts, and we’re working on other ways to make things better.

“As I’ve said for a long time, it’s a long-term strategy and we’re working towards that as we go. It’s not an overnight fix.”

GM is known to have been aggressive in its pursuit of a spearhead driver, with Grove Racing’s Matt Payne understood to have been its most recent target.

The manufacturer is also bringing into effect a collaborative approach between its teams including the establishment of a data pool, replacing the customer type of arrangement which Triple Eight had operated.

“We’re working forward towards the plan that we had, we’re very close to the finite execution of it with the tools and the resourcing that we have to put it into the structure that we want,” said McNamara.

“It’s an exciting time as we go forward, it’s a different way to go racing than we have in the past.”

Ford will five teams and 11 Mustangs on the grid next year, while Toyota will have five Supras across two teams.