{"id":597865,"date":"2026-04-10T12:33:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T12:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597865\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T12:33:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T12:33:18","slug":"supercars-teams-react-to-james-warburton-exit-share-wishlist-for-next-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597865\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars teams react to James Warburton exit, share wishlist for next CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

JAMES Warburton\u2019s replacement as Supercars CEO needs to be a visionary with the ability to further grow the championship\u2019s foothold, according to teams.<\/p>\n

A large chunk of the paddock has expressed disappointment at Warburton\u2019s sudden departure<\/a>, which occurred with immediate effect last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the thing James did really well is he had the trust of the teams and he was able to kind of move the politics out of the way and get everyone united on the direction of the sport,\u201d said Grove Racing CEO Brenton Grove.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will be a loss in my opinion, I think he was very good for the sport and was able to get some traction in a relatively short timeframe.<\/p>\n

MORE: Nettlefold opens up on search for new Supercars CEO<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"James Warburton. Pic: Supplied\/Mark Horsburgh<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at what\u2019s happening in Formula 1 at the moment: no one really wants to watch it, drivers are wanting to go and race in other series.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if you look on social media, there\u2019s a lot of posts about how good Supercars is and how pure Supercars is. I think to a worldwide demographic, people are wanting pure, hard, close racing and we have that product.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the series hasn\u2019t always done a good job of promoting how incredible we are and how talented our drivers and engineers are.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just have to look at Shane (van Gisbergen) or Scott (McLaughlin) or Jeromy Moore, anyone that has left Australia and gone overseas, they\u2019ve kind of always ended up in a very big championship and they\u2019ve always ended up at the front.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we have incredible talent here and that\u2019s the thing we need to sell.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are unique to AFL and NRL, it is a different demographic, but we probably need to look at how we can freshen up that approach because there\u2019s a lot of people in the world looking for what we have. I just don\u2019t think there\u2019s many people in the world that see what we are, and that\u2019s our biggest challenge to fix moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Tickford Racing CEO Simon Brookhouse said: \u201cWe need someone who is a visionary and wants to actually take it forward and break into new frontiers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe TV rights have obviously been done and whatnot, but for me, I think to be competitive with all the other sports, we need to get to know our athletes a lot more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to actually showcase the drivers particularly and I think we need to look beyond what we are currently doing and try to just freshen up what we do around our broadcast and other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut more importantly I think the next CEO needs to spruik how good this competition is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the best motor racing competitions in the world, if not the best, in terms of the closeness of racing and qualifying. We need to get out there and actually broadcast that and actually sing from the rafters that this is here to stay.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got three great manufacturers involved, we\u2019ve got great drivers; let\u2019s get to know them, let\u2019s get to know the teams and let\u2019s keep promoting what we do and take on the AFLs and NRLs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Simon Brookhouse, with Matt Stone nearby. Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n

As for eponymous team owner Matt Stone?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest quality the new incumbent needs is probably a bit of imagination and the ability to really showcase what we do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI completely agree that the racing is world-class and the broadcast, James was definitely making some changes and exploring what could be done to better produce the package.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we need someone who can come with a bit of imagination and try to bring the whole sport to the next level so that we can get on the world stage and compete better with the ball sports in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supercars chairman and co-owner Barclay Nettlefold is acting as CEO in the interim.<\/p>\n

\"\"Barclay Nettlefold (middle). Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JAMES Warburton\u2019s replacement as Supercars CEO needs to be a visionary with the ability to further grow the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-597865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597865","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=597865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}