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Jamie Whincup says that the build of a customer Gen3 Chevrolet Camaro for Peter Adderton is part of the ‘huge pressure’ in preparing for next year’s new regulations.
Boost Mobile founder and director Adderton ceremoniously announced the purchase of the vehicle from Triple Eight Race Engineering during this year’s Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.
The announcement was part of a Adderton’s public push towards entering Supercars in 2023 by obtaining the 26th TRC (Teams Racing Charter), which has seen him suggest on social media that he will be at the 2023 season-opening Newcastle race regardless.
Former Triple Eight boss Roland Dane has weighed into the debate, suggesting that Adderton is not taking the correct approach.
Triple Eight Race Engineering is the homologation team for next year’s Gen3 Chevrolet Camaro, with Dick Johnson Racing responsible for the Gen3 Ford Mustang, both of which are undergoing critical VCAT aerodynamic testing this week.
The ability of Triple Eight to deliver a customer car to Adderton follows many teams publicly sharing delays building their Gen3 cars for 2023, with parts shortages and significant repair work on current cars after difficult weekends adding to delays.
Whincup, however, suggests that supplying Adderton the Gen3 Camaro is part of the significant effort in switching to new race cars.
“[It’s] Massive pressure – but no different to every other time,” the seven-time champion and now Team Principal told Speedcafe.com.
“When we moved from Ford to Holden, that was intense, that was big sacrifice by a lot of people over a long period of time to get that done, and that’s what we’re dialled into again. It’s [Gen3] been two years in the making, we’ve been really dialled in and been dedicated in the last two years, and we’re getting close.”
Whincup explained that the additional build for Adderton hasn’t hampered the teams own build or other customer cars, which includes eight Camaros for its own Supercars Championship team as well as cars for Team 18, PremiAir Racing and two spares.
“I can’t speak for everybody, but certainly we’re on track as on-track can be. New car design and build is a very, very difficult thing and there’s lots of moving parts – we’re working through that like we have every other time that we’ve built a brand-new car.
“It’s been a similar journey for us when we decided to go from Ford to Holden when we changed from one model to the next, it was quite a complex thing. We’re on that journey like we always have [been] and for us it’s similar to the other builds in the past.”
