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Carsales Staff29 May 2015
NEWS

MOTORSPORT: Top team snares extra V8 Supercar licence

Triple Eight chief Roland Dane continues to put the pieces in place for his team's future, winning the tender for the 26th Racing Entitlements Contract

Roland Dane's Triple Eight Race Engineering has not only won six of the past seven V8 Supercar championships, now it's secured the extra licence – formally called a Racing Entitlements Contract – in the series that was up for tender.

That solves the puzzle of how Triple Eight accommodates a third top driver, Shane Van Gisbergen, next season – as if there was any doubt that Dane would find a way.

Dane announced almost three months ago that he would bring New Zealander Van Gisbergen into the fold with his six-time champion Jamie Whincup and veteran Craig Lowndes, who won three titles before joining Triple Eight and has long been the most popular and marketable driver in V8 Supercars.

While Ford Falcon driver Mark Winterbottom seized this year's championship lead during the most recent round at Victoria's Winton circuit, Lowndes and Whincup are well-placed – second and fourth – in Triple Eight's Red Bull-liveried Holden Commodores. Triple Eight leads the teams championship yet again with the season barely one-third complete.

The full-time field will expand to 26 cars next year now that V8 Supercars has sold, for an undisclosed price, the REC handed back at the end of last season by South Australian businessman James Rosenberg to Dane.

Two other RECs, handed in by Tony D'Alberto Racing and Dean Fiore's Triple F at the end of 2013, remain on the shelf at V8 Supercar headquarters – and are likely to stay there, at least until the arrival of the Gen2 era in 2017.

The Gen2 regulations, a draft version of which is expected to be announced within a month, will open the door to cars with engines other than V8s, probably with fewer cylinders but turbocharged, and coupe (two-door) bodywork rather than the traditional four-door sedans.

Those rules may entice other manufacturers to enter the sport, with Lexus most often mentioned as the next likely candidate with its RC F coupe. Nissan is known to be contemplating a switch from its Altima sedan to its hero car, the GT-R.

For two decades V8 Supercars had only two makes, Holden and Ford, while Nissan entered under the 'Car of the Future' rules introduced in 2013, as did Betty Klimenko's Erebus Motorsport with Mercedes cars but without the blessing of Mercedes-Benz Australia. Volvo came into the category last year.

The Gen2 concept is seen as the sport's way of adapting to the changing Australian car market, with Ford and Holden ceasing road car production in Australia soon.

Ford has already massively scaled back its support to the V8 Supercar teams bearing its blue oval badge – the former official factory team, previously called Ford Performance Racing but now Prodrive Racing Australia, and the long-established Dick Johnson Racing that is now controlled by America's Team Penske.

While those two teams are expected to continue running Ford Falcons next year, there is no certainty of that beyond then – and certainly not in 2017.

DJR Team Penske is running only one car this season but it could easily be two next year, perhaps to field both the temporarily self-exiled Marcos Ambrose and his substitute Scott Pye, as one of its RECs is on loan.

That REC is being used now by New Zealand team Super Black Racing, which fields a fourth Falcon out of the Prodrive workshop driven by Kiwi teenager Andre Heimgartner.

Super Black has made it known that it is a potential buyer of any REC that becomes available, perhaps even two.

It is thought to have been one of perhaps several unsuccessful bidders for the 26th REC secured today by Triple Eight.

V8 Supercars' chief executive James Warburton said the tender, which closed last Friday, had been "extremely competitive".

"It is testament to the great health and growth of the sport at all levels that a number of parties wanted the opportunity to join the championship from next year," Warburton said.

Tekno Autosports, the one-car Webb family team that will lose Van Gisbergen to Triple Eight, is happy to stick with just one REC. It already runs a Triple Eight-built Holden and another New Zealand driver, Fabian Coulthard, now with Brad Jones Racing, appears the most likely replacement for Van Gisbergen.

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