McElrea Racing will field six Porsches across the Carrera Cup and GT3 Cup Challenge series in the 2018 season.
Team boss Andy McElrea confirmed rising star Jaxon Evans will return alongside Anthony Gilbertson in the squad’s Porsche Wilson Security Carrera Cup program, with Tim Miles also set to join the team following a stint in Australian GT last season.
McElrea also plans to run another three cars in Porsche Michelin GT3 Cup Challenge Australia series, with two of the team’s three cars already filled.
“Well we have two of our three drivers done, we’re still deciding who our third driver will be, which will drive the ex-Jaxon Evans/Matt Campbell car,” McElrea confirmed to Speedcafe.com.
“The driver of that car is the kid that we want to develop as we have with Matt and then Jaxon to hopefully win us a Carrera Cup championship in a couple of years’ time.
“There’s a couple of kids that we’re in discussions with – I can’t say anything just yet.”
McElrea took to Queensland Raceway earlier this week as it gained its first experience with the brand-new 2018 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car.
The veteran team boss liked what he saw, suggesting the new car will produce new style of racing as drivers are forced to manage their tyres in lieu of the increased power from the new cars.
“All drivers have reported significant improvements in the power, or increase, which is going to make setting the cars up and managing the tyres during the race a lot more difficult than it was,” McLrea said.
“It’s probably going to catch out some of the newer drivers with the amount of power that they have.”
McElrea Racing also ran four cars at the Bathurst 12 Hour, including three McLaren 650S GT3s and the Competition Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3-R.
The operation saw more than 60 staff at the event, which netted the team fourth overall.
“It was a pretty massive effort but we were planning for it six months in advance, so we had it pretty well in hand,” McElrea said.
“We had some big names helping us with Roland (Dane) and Adrian Burgess, Campbell Little and a lot of our own guys, so we had the right people in the right places.
“The results wasn’t quite what we wanted but for Tony Walls, particularly, the Porsche would have got very close to winning had the safety car not come out, and the Fraser Ross/Scott McLaughlin car, the driver had no radio. That car would well have been on the podium.”
The opening Carrera Cup round of the season takes place at the Adelaide 500 on March 1-4.
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