Brodie Kostecki’s bombshell step away from Erebus Motorsport – if only in practice rather than necessarily being a contractual split – means no champion of the past eight seasons will be lining up on the starting grid this coming weekend at Mount Panorama.
So, just who will be performing doughnuts around the trophy on the main straight at Adelaide this November?
You tell us, in this week’s Pirtek Poll.
Red Bull Ampol Racing is the most obvious place to look, if only because Broc Feeney is the highest-finishing driver in the 2023 standings to be starting the 2024 season.
However, that statistic alone belies the threat he posed during his second full season in the top tier, when he outgunned Shane van Gisbergen on multiple occasions and won the Sandown 500.
New team-mate Will Brown will surely be one to watch as well. The Toowoomban may have had a poor finish to the 2023 campaign, after locking in his defection from Erebus to Triple Eight Race Engineering, but was leading the championship at the halfway mark.
But, what of Erebus in 2024? Jack Le Brocq was quickly snapped up as a replacement for Brown, while Todd Hazelwood will stand in for Kostecki for at least the time being.
The engineers, however, are the same and the Camaros are brand-new for the season ahead, so will one of its new drivers stand up?
Brad Jones Racing finished third in the teams’ championship in 2023, with Andre Heimgartner leading the charge in the R&J Batteries Camaro, and Porsche ace Jaxon Evans, one of the stars of the just-completed Bathurst 12 Hour, now joining the fold in the SCT entry.
As for the leading Ford teams, parity is a crucial consideration.
Regardless of how results came to be so lopsided in 2023, the squads fielding Mustangs are likely to be more competitive thanks to off-season wind tunnel testing and a big push to improve the Coyote-based engine which appeared no match for the Chevrolet ‘LTR’ unit in the first season of Gen3.
Walkinshaw Andretti United fielded the best-finishing Ford driver, Chaz Mostert ending the year in fourth spot despite failing to win a race in the Mobil 1 Optus Mustang.
Tickford Racing, though, was the best-performing Ford team and has undergone a major off-season restructure in senior management and operating model.
Will Cam Waters finally go one better than he did in 2020 and 2022, and has Thomas Randle now arrived?
Of course, the Shell V-Power Racing Team would be more than a little peeved if it is outdone by WAU and Tickford again.
The Ford homologation team carries an unchanged driver line-up of Will Davison and Anton De Pasquale into 2024 but has also undergone a big restructure with Ryan Story returning to Team Principal duties and Perry Kapper replacing Ludo Lacroix as Car #11’s Race Engineer.
Penrite Racing has only changed a driver but that new driver is a certain Richie Stanaway, who will share the garage with the most recent race winner, 2023 rookie Matt Payne.
The Braeside-based squad has been investing heavily and could well be poised to strike in a serious way.
Outside those squads, Team 18, PremiAir Racing, Matt Stone Racing, and the Blanchard Racing Team can all lay claim to having the same opportunities in the Gen3 era, with two of that quartet having won races in 2023.
Who will field the championship-winning driver, and who will it be? Cast your vote below in this week’s Pirtek Poll.
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