The US giant needs to fill the enormous shoes set to be left by Triple Eight, which announced late last month that it will return to Ford in 2026.
GM Australia and NZ managing director Jess Bala and Chevrolet Racing general manager Chris Payne faced the media last Thursday to affirm the brand’s ongoing commitment to Supercars.
The duo subsequently met with all current GM teams at Sydney Motorsport Park ahead of a decision on who will take over HT duties.
While a new HT is officially appointed based on a majority vote among teams from the relevant marque, the decision will effectively be made by GM and then signed-off.
Teams are being analysed by GM against a 21-point evaluation score, which Bala gave insight into during Supercars’ Sydney TV broadcast.
“We’ve got an extensive criteria list that we’re going through and we’ve had extensive conversations with all our teams already, including over the weekend here at SMP,” she said.
“We’re looking at everything across the board, whether it’s obviously performance, the team itself, culture, what they’re working towards, what they’ve got available from a resource standpoint, a long-term plan as well as a mid-term plan.
“We’re hoping to make that decision and announce something within the coming weeks.”
The weekend’s results emphasised the difficult position GM will find itself in without Triple Eight, which left Sydney as the only Camaro squad in the top five in the teams’ standings.
Ford team Grove Racing, which had shown frustration with current Blue Oval HT squad Dick Johnson Racing, is understood to have been approached by GM about a switch.
However, Grove has ruled out moving camps, expecting instead to benefit from Triple Eight taking over responsibility for the Mustang and possible changes to the Ford engine program.
Bala affirmed GM is only looking from within its current pool that consists of Team 18, Brad Jones Racing, Erebus Motorsport, PremiAir Racing and Matt Stone Racing.
“We’re very committed to our existing Chevy Racing teams and want to appoint someone from in-house,” she said.
Speculation was rife at SMP that the deal will land with either PremiAir Racing or Team 18, which both boast management and engineering staff familiar with homologation duties.
It’s understood PremiAir’s cause has been endorsed by Roland Dane, who is no longer affiliated with Triple Eight and is advising GM on its decision.
Dane in 2020 engineered an agreement for the Camaro to race in Supercars under Gen3, rescuing an otherwise certain GM exit with the demise of Holden.
The GM HT race is somewhat complicated by the presence of Toyota, which is still to lock in a second team to race Supras alongside its appointed factory team Walkinshaw Andretti United.
The cost of changing over to Supras, and suggestions Toyota has minimal sponsorship money allocated for its second team, may make the GM HT deal more appealing for PremiAir and Team 18.
Conversely, the total GM Supercars budget is believed to be small compared to that of Ford and Toyota, and the HT position comes with responsibilities attached.
The inability for GM to directly replace Triple Eight with another powerhouse team has also brought suggestions that its HT duties should be split across multiple Camaro runners.
GM bosses stressed last week that they are rethinking their racing model, desiring a more collaborative approach and input from their own racing headquarters in Detroit.
While GM does not currently have a new body shape in the works to replace the Camaro, the HT role is still important as it involves working on minor updates to the existing car and observing the Supra’s homologation.
Triple Eight has been the GM homologation team since replacing the Walkinshaw-run Holden Racing Team as the factory squad in 2017.
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