The rebuild of Basic Motors’ Supercars program is because of take a giant step this weekend at Symmons Plains.
Which will sound like an odd factor to say through the 2025 championship, wherein a Chevrolet driver – Will Brown – leads the factors, there are 5 Chevrolet drivers within the all-important prime 10, and Triple Eight leads the groups’ standings.
All that comes after two seasons of Supercars racing underneath the Gen 3 rules, and two drivers’ and groups’ titles. In two seasons and 52 Supercars races, the wins have been break up Chevrolet 38, Ford 14.
The ‘rebuild’ is concerning the future, not the current. Subsequent 12 months Triple Eight, the pitlane’s alpha workforce, will race Ford Mustangs. Walkinshaw Andretti United, in previous days a constant winner for Holden, will change manufacturers once more, from Ford to Toyota. And the Japanese make is circling for a second workforce to run its GR Supra Supercars, and rumours persist that Brad Jones Racing stays a candidate for that function.
Enter – or extra precisely, welcome again – Simon McNamara. The long-time Holden Motorsport and Sponsorship Supervisor has returned to the game, confirming that he has taken on the function of Motorsports Supercars Racing Program Supervisor at Basic Motors.
Between 2007 and 2017 McNamara was accountable for Holden’s Supercars successes. A lot of that profitable was all the way down to Triple Eight, which raced via the 2009 season with out producer branding after being dropped by Ford. Holden and McNamara swooped, the workforce swapped its Ford Falcons for Holden Commodores, and the remaining is historical past: eight drivers’ titles and 10 groups’ championships.
Holden Motorsport boss Simon McNamara
Photograph by: Chris Von Wieldt
However when GM shuttered its Holden model, McNamara, a 22-year veteran of the corporate, departed. Triple Eight and fellow Chevrolet workforce Erebus Motorsport stored the profitable streak alive, however there have been stirrings at each Ford and Toyota.
Nearly precisely three years earlier than McNamara’s return, Ford recruited Ben Nightingale to its communications workforce. With an extended historical past within the pitlane, together with stints with Supercars itself and DJR Workforce Penske, it was not lengthy earlier than motorsport usually and Supercars particularly have been added to his CV.
Though his function and McNamara’s will not be an identical, it was on Nightingale’s watch that Ford poached Triple Eight away to not solely race Mustangs however be its homologation workforce, a task it has efficiently crammed for GM.
That transfer creates the considerably odd scenario whereby, except one thing unexpected occurs, the one two Supercars champions racing underneath the Chevrolet banner in 2026 will probably be Scott McLaughlin in IndyCar and Shane Van Gisbergen in NASCAR.
If BJR defects to Toyota, it additionally implies that the 14-10 numerical benefit Chevrolet enjoys over Ford will evaporate, with 10 Mustangs, eight Camaros and 6 Supras on the grid.
From the surface it appears to be like like excessive on McNamara’s to-do record will probably be to circle the wagons and make sure the remaining Chevrolet groups obtain the technical and monetary assist they require to be aggressive. However in mild of the incoming adjustments on the grid for 2026, it might nicely be a rocky highway for Chevrolet followers for not less than a few seasons.
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For the medium to long-term nonetheless, the information appears to be like a lot brighter. The return of the no-nonsense McNamara wouldn’t have occurred with no clear image of what GM plans to do in Supercars within the medium to long-term. Whereas Audi’s nascent Formulation 1 program has seen a few of its different racing packages shrink or disappear altogether, GM’s Cadillac F1 program doesn’t look like a think about compromising Supercars future – the truth is, simply the alternative.
Clearly, whether or not what comes subsequent from GM entails a brand new mannequin Camaro, Cadillac or one thing else for what would seemingly be Supercars’ Gen 4, McNamara is bound to play a giant function in what that may seem like.
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