Erebus banking Gen3 test days

Supercars Championship-leading team Erebus Motorsport will use this week’s Winton booking as an opportunity to evaluate two young drivers rather than use up an official VCS Test Day.

A majority of southern-based teams and all of the Sunshine State squads will take to Winton on Wednesday or Queensland Raceway on Thursday for their first ever in-season Gen3 test days.

While the outings are thus particularly significant, as noted by Triple Eight Race Engineering Team Principal Jamie Whincup, Erebus will take a different tack.

It will head up the Hume Highway to Winton for an Evaluation Day for one of its own academy drivers, Jay Hanson, and a Super2 rival from Eggleston Motorsport, Cooper Murray.

They will share the #9 Coca-Cola Camaro normally steered by last-start race winner Will Brown, who will be on hand to guide them through the occasion.

“We’re glad to have the opportunity to give Jay and Cooper the chance to test these new cars,” said team CEO Barry Ryan.

“We’ve run these evaluation days in the past and they’ve been really beneficial with the right drivers and we believe that Jay and Cooper are at the right point in their careers to show us what they’re capable of and we’ll be trusting their feedback.

“It gives us the opportunity to learn a little bit more about the Gen3 cars away from the race meetings.”

Repco Supercars Championship teams were effectively given five test days in this, the first year of Gen3 competition if one includes new car shakedowns in that figure.

The shakedown was necessarily used before the start of the season, as was ‘Test Day #2’ in Sydney at the official pre-season test, and ‘Test Day #1’ also had to be used sometime before the Newcastle 500.

That leaves Test Day #3 and Test Day #4 left for most, and Erebus will hold onto both until closer to the enduros at Sandown in September and Bathurst in November.

It has instead chosen to use a ‘Driver Evaluation Day’, which is officially a ‘Non-Testing Track Activity’, and of which a team is allowed one per year.

“Our intention for our two remaining test days is to do them closer to the enduro events,” added Ryan.

“It’s important heading into Sandown and Bathurst to really focus on the co-drivers and maximise their seat time closer to those race meetings.”

Thus far, only Team 18 has used up Test Day #3, undertaking a secret outing at Winton in response to a poor performance in April’s Wanneroo event.

Meanwhile, Image Racing/Erebus Academy was in action at The Bend last week, when Super3 Series leader Jobe Stewart tested his VF Commodore.

David Russell and Jack Perkins will reprise their co-driver roles with Brodie Kostecki and Brown respectively in this year’s Supercars enduros.