{"id":130800,"date":"2025-11-12T05:44:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T05:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/130800\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T05:44:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T05:44:17","slug":"supercars-news-ojedas-unseen-start-to-new-supercars-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/130800\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars news: Ojeda’s unseen start to new Supercars life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Ojeda\u2019s
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJayden Ojeda raced for WAU at the enduros. Image: Richard Gresham<\/p>\n

The GT star will make his PremiAir Racing debut at Sandown as part of a two-event cameo in place of Richie Stanaway<\/a>, who was dumped after the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n

The unexpected call-up forced a late change of plans for Ojeda who had to pull out of the final round of the Super Taikyu Series at Fuji, Japan, which also takes place this weekend.<\/p>\n

The Sandown and Adelaide outings will be a welcome head start for both team and driver before they link up for Ojeda\u2019s rookie Supercars season next year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But even ahead of Sandown, work on getting Ojeda embedded into the PremiAir stable began.<\/p>\n

Andrew Gilliam, who is set to be Ojeda\u2019s race engineer for the rest of this season and all of next, made a cameo of his own as engineer on the Tigani Motorsport Mercedes that Ojeda and Paul Lucchitti campaigned at the Australian GT finale at Hampton Downs last week.<\/p>\n

It was the first time Gilliam and Ojeda had worked together as a driver\/engineer combo, and left Ojeda excited about the relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s got an awesome attitude,\u201d Ojeda told Speedcafe.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s obviously a very capable driver in his own rights \u2013 probably better than I am on the sim, so I think that\u2019s a really good tool that he\u2019s got in his toolbox of being able to understand things from from a driver\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s really, really smart as well when it comes to theory behind things, and just got that attitude of being a sponge and wanting to learn, and wanting to soak it all up each step of the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to see that firsthand at Hampton Downs. He hadn\u2019t done any GT3 engineering before that point and he really applied himself as good as I could have hoped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a rookie, he\u2019s a rookie in terms of the engineering world as well. So we\u2019re going to be learning and leaning on each other. It\u2019s not all going to be smooth sailing, there\u2019ll be some bumps in the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the important thing is that we\u2019ve both got a lot of confidence in each other to learn and grow together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heading into what will be his first solo Supercars round since his wildcard campaign with Walkinshaw Andretti United in 2022, Ojeda has clear, realistic goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be new for me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t done a solo round since 2022 and I\u2019m at a different point in my career now to what I was back then.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot, especially about these longer races. The 250-kilometre races are no sprint race, so it\u2019s about understanding the way Supercars go racing at the moment, and what\u2019s important to get the result.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [the expectations] are probably more around feeling, how I feel within the car, within the team, and within the field of cars as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing is just feeling like we\u2019re making progress and basically putting ourselves in good shape for next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no expectation for me to go out there and set the world on fire. The goal is to make sure we roll out in 2026 in a better position.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n \"\"
\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jayden Ojeda raced for WAU at the enduros. Image: Richard Gresham The GT star will make his PremiAir…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[67373,111,139,69,15643,216,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-130800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-jayden-ojeda","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-premiair-racing","13":"tag-slot3","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}