MOTORSPORT: All change for V8 Supercars

V8 Supercars CEO James Warburton is predicting more manufacturer interest in joining Australia’s highest profile motorsport category with the introduction of Gen II technical rules in 2017.

Signed off in principle by team owners on the Gold Coast at their annual general meeting late last week, Gen II is understood to open up the category to engines other than V8s and coupe as well four-door body styles.

But front-mounted engines and rear-wheel drive are understood to have been retained as a fundamental. So too, the ‘one size fits all’ spaceframe chassis developed for Car of the Future.

Warburton will reveal more details about the Gen II plan at or before the final round of the 2014 championship, the Sydney 500 in early December. A 2015 rebranding designed to prepare us all for V8 to eventually be dropped from the name is also in the works.

The creation of Gen II so soon after V8 Supercars rolled its CotF formula on to the grid in 2013 has been driven by the dramatic collapse of the local car manufacturing industry and the death of the two stalwarts of racing for the last 20 years – the Ford Falcon no later than October 2016 and the Holden Commodore by late 2017.

The category’s bosses want to appeal to a wider cross-section of manufacturers in order to keep their teams and championship healthy. And these days not that many brands want to necessarily promote a V8 or a sedan.

“That’s really what Gen II is about – ensuring relevance while also giving us that level of growth too,” Warburton told motoring.com.au.

So Gen II means you could have V8s, sixes or turbo fours racing against each other – in theory it could mean V10s and V12s too – as well as the different body styles.

So who could be among these potential new players? V8 Supercars has talked to various brands not in the category now and claims at least five of them would have a more positive interest if the engine rules were freed up.

Warburton won’t name names but he does give an indication of the region he’d like to attract more interest from via Gen II.

“I think we have a lot of inbound enquiries,” Warburton said.

“You can even see it in terms of the framework of what certain CEOs of companies are actually saying; and they are saying the door might have been closed, but depending on where they [V8 Supercars] land we might be open to it.

“It opens up an enormous amount of opportunities for us in terms of participating brands and the change of order in terms of market share.

“We have to think about future generations, too. We have to think about participants, market share... Some of the Asian brands in particular and how they can weave in...

“I think it is an important time for us.”

Gen II may also help keep the current players interested. Under the revised rules Ford, which still hasn’t confirmed direct backing for next year (let alone 2016), could race its new Mustang coupe and/or the mainstream Mondeo as a six or four. Volvo could more directly promote the turbocharged four-cylinder technology it will embrace across its road car range.

Holden is already on record as stating the right Gen II regulations could make the category a very cost-effective way to promote the Commodore replacement – expected to be the Euro-sourced Opel Insignia sedan.

Nissan Australia boss Richard Emery told motoring.com.au that he has no interest in racing a coupe such as the GT-R in V8 Supercars and wants to continue on with the Altima sedan or its successor. He said that if the Gen II structure made sense, Nissan would re-commit to the category beyond 2016.

“We would look at sustaining where we are at in terms of bodyshell, or whether there was something else that fitted the category,” he said.

“If the category structure from 2017 onwards fits with our motorsport program globally and options that we do have, then there is no reason we won’t keep on going.

“A little bit of a reservation for me is that if 2017 does provide significant relaxations and maybe an engine off the shelf from a global program (becomes legal), how much money do I want to put into the current engines?

"That’s something we will have to discuss with them at the end of this year once we know what we are up for in 2017,” Emery told motoring.com.au.

Local Lexus chief Sean Hanley is one 'name' that has expressed interest in the category, if only in very qualified terms.

At the US launch of the new RC Coupe in September he told motoring.com.au: "About a year ago I would have closed the door on motor racing for Lexus in Australia... But now it's kind of open.

"We are not seeking to get into motor racing right now — we have no plans saying that we are getting into motor racing... But having said that, if the right opportunities and the right cars were available to us and the right race was available in Australia we'd be open to the idea of looking at it."

Motor racing pundits say the key to making the new Gen II specs work will be the category’s ability to devise a system of engine and aerodynamic parity more complex than the challenge it faces today – one it doesn’t always manage successfully.

“We have got the right formula, but if the world gets more complicated we have to be very sure of ourselves in terms of what we are going to deliver,” Warburton said.