JACK Perkins believes Erebus Motorsport will be General Motors’ best chance of capturing 2026 Repco Supercars Championship success for Chevrolet.
How GM fares next year is a major talking point given the defection of Triple Eight to Ford and the introduction of Toyota via Walkinshaw TWG Racing and Brad Jones Racing.
Those moves have left GM lacking both quantity (it will be outnumbered by Ford for the first time since 2007) and quality (its full-time driver contingent has a total of 19 career race wins between them).
That contingent is made up of Team 18’s Anton De Pasquale and David Reynolds, Matt Stone Racing’s Jack Le Brocq and Zach Bates, Erebus Motorsport’s Cooper Murray and Jobe Stewart, and PremiAir Racing’s Declan Fraser and Jayden Ojeda.
“If you go through that line-up, probably as it sits now the driver that is most likely to deliver consistent results for Chevrolet is Anton De Pasquale, based off a strong end to the year as well. That team and driver definitely had an upturn in performance,” veteran co-driver James Moffat said on The Undercut.
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“But MSR, they’re unlikely to feature. You have got Jack Le Brocq there who is returning back to there and you have got a rookie driver in Zach Bates, so he is going to take some time to find his feet.
“Erebus obviously have a young driver line-up: Cooper Murray has shown glimpses of speed in 2025 but needs to turn that speed into race results next year.
“Then you have got PremiAir who have got a big change in terms of two new drivers, Roland Dane coming back into the mix there as the team principal, but I can’t really see them being a factor either.”
Perkins though feels Erebus, who he co-drove for in seasons 2021-23, will lead the Camaro charge.
“I think team-wise, Erebus is probably their best chance at the moment,” he said.
“They won the championship in 2023… if you had a star driver in there like a Matt Payne or a Will Brown or Brodie Kostecki, then you would be saying ‘hey these guys are championship contenders’.
“Each team has a bit of a weak link at the moment in the Chevy side which is something they will need to futureproof moving forward.
“But like I said, I think Erebus are probably the best team poised there to deliver results for Chev. Team 18 not far behind.
“Matt Stone, I’d put money on them winning a race at the Grand Prix. For whatever reason, they have got a secret sauce there – and I told that to Zach Bates, ‘I’d be making sure you tighten the seatbelts for the AGP because you could be in it!’
“It’s going to be interesting indeed to see what moves they make in the background driver- and team-wise.”
GM is known to have targeted Matt Payne in recent times, which Grove Racing seemingly responded to by locking down young teammate Kai Allen through 2030.
Perkins meanwhile has confirmed he is departing the Blanchard Racing Team, amid expectations he’ll scoop up the Triple Eight/SCT co-drive alongside rookie Jackson Walls.
The #99 Erebus Camaro of Cooper Murray. Pic: Mark Walker