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Motorsport
Motorsport
Sport
Andrew van Leeuwen

Triple Eight facing 2023 car shortage

The Supercars powerhouse has been running two cars in the second-tier for the past two seasons using a pair of ex-main game VF Commodores.

However the programme could come to an end at the conclusion of the current campaign due to a shortage of suitable hardware.

The two VFs, owned by collectors and effectively leased back to the team, won't be eligible to run in Super2 in their current spec.

That is due to the recent backflip on eligibility that will limit the second-tier to the Gen2-spec Ford Mustang and ZB Commodore.

The VFs could be upgraded to ZB spec, however being owned by collectors means the cars need to continue with their original bodyshape.

The team's fleet of three main game cars, the ZBs raced by Shane van Gisbergen and Broc Feeney and the 'wildcard' car, will all be eligible for Super2 – however they don't actually belong to Triple Eight.

They were all snapped by PremiAir Racing owner Peter Xiberras back in 2020, before he took over the team formerly known as Team Sydney.

If Xiberras elects to take delivery of the cars, Triple Eight could be forced out of Super2.

"That's still to be determined," team boss Jamie Whincup told the Castrol Motorsport News podcast when asked about the future of the Super2 programme.

"The big factor is going to be cars. Our cars have been brought by Peter Xiberras, he's bought all three of them. We're not sure if we'll lease them back off him and continue to run Super2 or not.

"We don't own our VFs either. All of our cars have been bought by collectors, and those two VFs, they meed to be maintained as VFs, because it's an ex-SVG and ex-Craig Lowndes car.

"So the $100,000 upgrade to ZB wouldn't be feasible because you'd have to convert it all back again and I don't think the owners will want to do that anyway.

"So those cars aren't available to us. It would only be two of our three main cars."

Between the Super2 eligibility and the upcoming generation change, which has piqued the interest of collectors, the Gen2 car market is a hot topic in the paddock right now.

The Super2 rules also forbid building a brand new chassis without any main game history.

To shore up its own Super2 future, the Ford squad recently purchased a control chassis that had been raced as a Commodore from Garry Rogers Motorsport.

That car will be converted to a Mustang and then either sold or raced by the team in Super2 next season.

Triple Eight did explore and equally creative solution, using the trip to Melbourne for the Sandown SuperSprint as an opportunity to inspect the T8-built chassis owned by Team 18 that Lee Holdsworth crashed in Darwin in 2016.

However Whincup said the damage was too severe for it to be repaired and then converted to ZB spec.

"We have looked at buying other chassis for Super2 but we haven't been able to find any yet," he said.

"A great option would have been the crashed Lee Holdsworth car that Team 18 has got. We inspected that [last] Thursday and it's too far gone. It's a write-off.

"That option is out and there's not really many options around.

"We'll keep hunting but if we can't find a solution we'll just focus on the main game next year."

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