{"id":182907,"date":"2025-12-14T05:13:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T05:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/182907\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T05:13:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T05:13:16","slug":"whincup-elaborates-on-supercars-non-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/182907\/","title":{"rendered":"Whincup elaborates on Supercars non-retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SUPERCARS legend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1-Jamie-Whincup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jamie Whincup<\/a> maintains that fans shouldn\u2019t read anything into him stopping short of officially retiring from racing.<\/p>\n<p>In announcing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/triple-eight-signs-percat-to-replace-whincup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nick Percat\u2019s recruitment and Scott Pye\u2019s retention<\/a> as co-drivers, Whincup said \u201cat this stage I will not be driving a Red Bull Ampol Racing race car in the 2026 or 2027 enduros\u201d but \u201cI\u2019m not shutting the door on driving ever again\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>That prompted speculation that Whincup could shift to the incoming SCT entry alongside rookie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2862-Jackson-Walls\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jackson Walls<\/a>, but V8 Sleuth <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/perkins-linked-to-triple-eight-supercars-co-drive\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">understands that co-drive has been snapped up by Jack Perkins<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/1-43-scale-2024-adelaide-500-87-chevrolet-camaro-will-brown-model?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/B18C24G_1_43_in_box-2_1024x1024.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In confirming to V8 Sleuth that Percat and Pye have inked two-year deals, Whincup indicated the 2025 Repco Bathurst 1000 genuinely might have been the end of the road.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t read anything into why I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m fully retiring,\u201d said the man who had been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1545-Broc-Feeney\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Broc Feeney<\/a>\u2019s co-driver for each of the past four enduro campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just don\u2019t want to be that person that says I\u2019m retired and then has to make a comeback.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve got no intention, no plan. I think Bathurst this year was my last event, but it may not be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Undercut \u2013 Unpacking the Grand Final drama!<\/p>\n<p>The team return to break down all of the big talking points from Adelaide and season 2025<\/p>\n<p>Even outside of Supercars, Whincup said there\u2019s no burning desire to tick off any bucket list items behind the wheel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel like I have given all I can with this concept of trying to drive a car around in circles as fast as you possibly can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a great concept, it has involved half my life, but I have got no huge desire now to keep doing that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat I do have a huge desire of is growing the Triple Eight Race Engineering franchise. There\u2019s a big challenge there and I\u2019m looking forward to that challenge and trying to do the best I can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This season was the first since 2019 that Triple Eight won neither the drivers\u2019 championship nor the Bathurst 1000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUPERCARS legend Jamie Whincup maintains that fans shouldn\u2019t read anything into him stopping short of officially retiring from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-182907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182907","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=182907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}