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Motorsport
Motorsport
Sport
Andrew van Leeuwen

PremiAir springs Supercars enduro surprise

Webb has been given the nod to partner Tim Slade for the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 races later in the year.

The deal comes at the expense of Joey Mawson, who was long the preferred candidate for the seat but struggled to get approval from Supercars as he didn't meet all of the superlicence criteria.

There looked to be headway on that several weeks back after the Supercars Commission agreed that Mawson was a suitable candidate for a drive, however the deal still didn't happen.

Mawson's license woes have since worsened with Motorsport Australia suspending his regular licence amid an investigation into supplement use.

Webb is a somewhat left-field choice given he has mostly been absent from the paddock since selling Team Sydney to Peter Xiberras, who turned it into PremiAir Racing.

He did, however, sample a PremiAir Gen3 car recently and was spotted in the paddock during the Townsville 500 weekend.

Webb has extensive experience in Supercars as a driver and won the Bathurst 1000 with Will Davison in 2016.

“I was thankful for the opportunity to drive a PremiAir Supercar with the Nulon Racing team at their Queensland Raceway test day in June," said Webb.

"When the opportunity presented to join Tim for the enduros, I jumped at the chance. It’s an honour, and I look forward to contributing my best efforts to assist Tim and the team with their Championship.

“I have full confidence in Tim and the team’s ability for success at both Sandown and Bathurst. I’m sincerely grateful that Peter Xiberras and Tim Slade have granted me this opportunity.”

Slade, meanwhile, welcomed Webb to the PremiAir fold.

“I’m looking forward to pairing up with Jono for this year’s enduros," he said. "Jono obviously has a wealth of experience in Supercars and has won races both as a solo driver and co driver.

“He did his first laps in a Gen3 car at our last test day and felt pretty comfortable straight up which was good, plus he’ll get the opportunity to get further acquainted with the car at our Sydney ride day and pre enduro test day."

Xiberras explained that the team waited as long as it could for Supercars to resolve the Mawson licence issue.

"Obviously it has been widely reported that we were looking to give Joey Mawson a drive with Tim to give some young and upcoming talent a go, and we hung out as long as we possibly could to try and make that happen,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the bid for Mawson to be approved for a superlicence for the events has not progressed, and so we had to make a decision and we decided to do all that we could to give Tim the best possible chance to recover some points after a difficult start to the season by partnering him with an experienced co-driver.

“Jono showed a lot of speed in his time at the wheel during our QR test day and he has proven, race-winning experience as both a co-driver and a solo driver.

"We are confident he will be the perfect co-driver for Tim at Sandown and Bathurst this year and we are looking forward to seeing what they can achieve together at these prestigious events.”

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