A wildcard deal with Walkinshaw Andretti United \u2013 the operation formerly known as the Holden Racing Team \u2013 was later explored but didn\u2019t come to fruition.<\/p>\n
After winning the 2018 Bathurst 1000 with Craig Lowndes<\/a>, Richards was shuffled out of Triple Eight as it downscaled from three cars to two.<\/p>\n Richards subsequently signed with Team 18 on a two-year deal to reunite with long-time teammate Mark Winterbottom<\/a> there, but hung up the helmet after their run to sixth in 2019 in order to take a full-time role as the squad\u2019s relationships manager.<\/p>\n The strain attached to the COVID-19 pandemic put paid to that chapter however, with Richards among those to lose their jobs as budgets tightened.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d sacrificed a two-year deal to help Charlie (Schwerkolt) manage his sponsorship program,\u201d Richards reflected to host Aaron Noonan.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I was supposed to drive in 2020 but I didn\u2019t do that, because I was looking for that next step out of driving but still in motorsport, and that was the opportunity that was presented.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I canned 2020\u2026 but also everyone had got their drivers sorted.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I kind of went back and put my hand up for \u201921 and there was something that Walkinshaw were looking to do with a wildcard with Jack (Perkins). But it never eventuated.<\/p>\n \u201cThen I think from that point on, I didn\u2019t really try too hard because I wasn\u2019t driving full-time.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last thing I wanted to do, if I did get the opportunity, was go and do a poor job because I wasn\u2019t doing enough driving.\u201d<\/p>\n As it turned out, Perkins was announced in February 2021 as Will Brown<\/a>\u2019s co-driver at Erebus Motorsport, while WAU was perhaps rewarded for its streamlined focus as Chaz Mostert<\/a> and Lee Holdsworth<\/a> conquered Mount Panorama that December.<\/p>\n Richards\u2019 Bathurst 1000 starts tally meanwhile officially ended at 27.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/RGP-2026-itm-Townsville-500-_05A9347-1024x576.jpg\")
Steven Richards (right) with Aaron Cameron at the Townsville 500. Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STEVEN Richards drove for many iconic Supercars teams, and could have finished his career by adding one more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-801157","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\/801157","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=801157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}