{"id":328412,"date":"2025-12-05T01:42:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T01:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/328412\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T01:42:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T01:42:21","slug":"how-general-motors-rates-its-2026-supercars-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/328412\/","title":{"rendered":"How General Motors rates its 2026 Supercars chances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>GENERAL Motors has just been crowned Supercars\u2019 champion manufacturer for the fifth successive season but it faces an uphill battle to extend that streak next year.<\/p>\n<p>Chevrolet is losing not only Triple Eight and Brad Jones Racing to rivals this summer but also race-winning drivers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1545-Broc-Feeney\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Broc Feeney<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1292-Will-Brown\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Will Brown<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-38-Nick-Percat\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nick Percat<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-829-Andre-Heimgartner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Andr\u00e9 Heimgartner<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1703-Cameron-Hill\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cameron Hill<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The only incumbent it will have from the top half of the 2025 championship standings is Team 18\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1264-Anton-De Pasquale\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anton De Pasquale<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The remaining seven full-time Camaros will be piloted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-5-David-Reynolds\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Reynolds<\/a> (Team 18), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1181-Jack-Le Brocq\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jack Le Brocq<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2747-Zach-Bates\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zach Bates<\/a> (both Matt Stone Racing), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1701-Cooper-Murray\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cooper Murray<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2756-Jobe-Stewart\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jobe Stewart<\/a> (both Erebus Motorsport), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1544-Jayden-Ojeda\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jayden Ojeda<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2633-Declan-Fraser\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Declan Fraser<\/a> (both PremiAir Racing).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/v8-sleuth-magazine-issue-1?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/V8Sleuth-Magazine-1_91f7f282-3ced-4ad8-9031-10de31dcd2de_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Chevrolet will at least boast enduro star power through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-6-Craig-Lowndes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Craig Lowndes<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-15-James-Courtney\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Courtney<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>GM Motorsports\u2019 Supercars racing program manager Simon McNamara acknowledges there is work to be done, but is not exactly putting a line through 2026.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think if you go Bathurst specifically, the best team at Bathurst for the last number of years would be Erebus,\u201d McNamara told V8 Sleuth last month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBarry (Ryan) has done a great job, certainly with who he has got driving there next year, they\u2019re two young guys who have proven themselves to be more than capable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s some experience with Anton and Dave, and then some new-old blood at PremiAir, and at Matt Stone it\u2019s good to see Zach there. We have got a good mix between experience and youth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no reason why we can\u2019t be there or thereabouts, and we\u2019re working on other ways to make things better.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs I\u2019ve said for a long time, it\u2019s a long-term strategy and we\u2019re working towards that as we go. It\u2019s not an overnight fix.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/v8-sleuth-commodore-chronicles-vn-vp-vr-vs-book?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/commodore-chronicles_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>GM is known to have been aggressive in its pursuit of a spearhead driver, with Grove Racing\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2716-Matt-Payne\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Payne<\/a> understood to have been its most recent target.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re working forward towards the plan that we had, we\u2019re 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,\u201d said McNamara.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time as we go forward, it\u2019s a different way to go racing than we have in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ford will five teams and 11 Mustangs on the grid next year, while Toyota will have five Supras across two teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GENERAL Motors has just been crowned Supercars\u2019 champion manufacturer for the fifth successive season but it faces an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-328412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}