The ambitious executive has detailed the radical plan at the Perth Super440, where he’s in attendance as part of a packed schedule ahead of his official start date on July 23.
Cracking the potentially lucrative Asian market proved elusive during Warburton’s first stint in the job from 2013-17, despite years of spruiking the potential of flyaway races.
Supercars’ current management, led by RACE chairman Barclay Nettlefold, has concentrated on building ties with F1 to race in the Asian region but has also yet to land a deal.
Warburton has declared he’s still a believer in taking Supercars beyond Australia and New Zealand but admits a different model is required.
“There’s probably three distinct models,” he said.
“There’s someone that wants to pay you an insane amount of money to go race, probably unlikely to happen in a time zone that’s attractive. That’s one model.
“The second model is you become a support category to a major act [such as F1].
“Then the third is you think about a model in which you could actually use a flyaway kit or a duplicate kit [of cars] to take out the logistics and take out the cost in terms of freight.”
The new plan is based around a second set of Gen3 cars and equipment based in Asia, running a separate championship to the existing competition.
“What I’ve talked about is geared around Asia, particularly around things like the Singapore Grand Prix, where we have a duplicate kit of cars, and they are based overseas,” Warburton explained.
“We have a 14-round championship in Australia and New Zealand, which is set, that’s the championship.
“Then maybe in between weeks, if we can create a model that works, it’s a significant investment in the car and the kit, you can have races in some of those off weeks.
“So you could have a scenario where you might be able to develop 20 rounds of racing and 20 rounds of action, but in two distinct championships.
“That’s the beauty of RACE and their ownership because they can help in terms of investing or finding the investors to go into that business model with the teams that want to participate.”
The duplicate kit model is one Nettlefold had already been exploring since organising a takeover of the business in late 2021.
“They were definitely looking at a duplicate kit, but I think gearing that to support FOM (Formula One Management) was probably where the plan was more centred,” added Warburton.
“That’s still a possibility, but for us, gearing it around races in appropriate time zones in Asia that can be beamed back into Australia to add to what we’ve got is probably a business model that can function and work a bit better.
“Because you’ve got [broadcast] rights, you’ve got commercial outcomes, you can sell sponsorship, and you can own your patch.”
Amid a flurry of questions around the viability of such an ambitious plan and which teams and drivers would compete, Warburton stressed the target date for the plan is 2027.
“This is not something that’s going to roll out for ‘26, this is something that is going to take some time to put in place. But the model could be anything, you know?” he continued.
“If you’re looking at sprint rounds and no pit stops, you could actually have servicing crew by brand (manufacturer). You could do it very differently to what you’re doing.
“I think, commercially, you mightn’t take all the drivers, all the teams might not participate.
“Some teams might want more participation, run some of their primary drivers, obviously run some local drivers.
“That’s where the sponsorship dollars are going to come from.”
Warburton, who met with teams at their respective headquarters ahead of Perth, plans to present the full vision to stakeholders around September.
He stressed the overseas plan will not impact the existing local competition, a fear often associated with trying to take the championship offshore.
“You’ve got to optimise the Australian/New Zealand championship,” he said.
“So those 14 rounds cannot be affected by anything you do. Without a shadow of a doubt, that’s the business.
“This is a separate business. This is something completely separate.
“It might have management overview in it, but it’s going to have a local team, it’s going to have a lot of logistics, there might be event promoters…
“It’s good that we’re now with a global broadcaster in DAZN, so you’ve actually got the ability to do things in and around where we need to be.
“We’ve always messed around with international [events] and we’ve had some wins, some losses, some wild swings.
“If someone’s going to pay you an insane amount of money, you’re going to take two 747s and you’re going to fly away and fit a round in.
“[But] it’s unrealistic, so we’ve got to do something different. And we should be. We should take this great category to particularly the motorsport mad Asia.
“That’s where there’s huge opportunity for us to grow.”
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