The five-time champion has praised GM’s response to date after being blindsided by news of homologation team Triple Eight’s shock defection to Ford for 2026.
Its moves have included poaching Triple Eight engineering whiz Jeromy Moore, securing KRE to an exclusive engine supply contract and locking in Team 18 as its new HT.
GM bosses have also acknowledged a desire to bolster their driving ranks, but that’s not proving easy with most recent race winners – including Triple Eight’s Will Brown and Broc Feeney – under contract.
Cam Waters is understood to have rebuffed GM before re-signing with Tickford Racing, while another logical target, Chaz Mostert, has publicly declared he’ll stick true to his WAU deal.
Fox Sports analyst Skaife told Speedcafe it’s only logical that GM would be exploring the market and urged for the company to make a bold play.
“If I was running a race team, I would constantly be looking for the very best operators. You would be delinquent if you weren’t,” he said.
“And they don’t come along that often. You think about a Jamie Whincup or a Craig Lowndes, they are pretty few and far between in terms of absolute superstars.
“I think overall, the policy around having superstar drivers, I can’t emphasise enough how essential it is. It’s just fact.
“Where would Red Bull be without [Max] Verstappen? They’d be nowhere. To me, GM finding a, or maybe a couple, of real stars is essential.
“I thought when I read about [GM] trying to get Cam Waters, that made a lot of sense to me.
“But I’d be looking at some other scenarios. I’d be picking the phone up to someone like a Dan Ricciardo or a Matt Campbell.
“I’d be looking outside our current sphere to try and procure an absolute superstar.”
Ricciardo has largely gone to ground since his F1 career came to a sudden end when he was replaced at Racing Bulls midway through last season.
While there’s been no indication the West Aussie would entertain a full-time Supercars seat, he’s on multiple occasions floated a desire to tackle the Bathurst 1000.
Skaife meanwhile revealed he met with local GM chiefs earlier this year in the wake of the Triple Eight bombshell amid concern as to whether the company would quit the sport.
GMSV MD Jess Bala and Chevrolet Racing manager Chris Payne appeared to be blindsided by the move, which triggered direct intervention from US GM bosses.
That has included the appointment of former Holden Motorsport manager Simon McNamara to lead the GM Supercars program.
“In professional motorsport there are going to be things that come along and surprise you and clearly Ford’s move to capture Triple Eight was a massive whack for GM,” Skaife said.
“I met with General Motors and spoke a lot with [former HSV and HRT boss] John Crennan about this, because it’s a pivotal period for GM to be able to give them a whack back.
“The part I was personally really concerned about was to ensure they were going to a), stay in the game, and b), be competitive and fan friendly.”
Skaife sees the move to employ Moore directly as a major coup and noted the presence of team principal Adrian Burgess and engineer Richard Hollway at Team 18 as key to their selection as HT.
All three have experience of the Supercars homologation process, which in Hollway’s case included working with Skaife at HRT during the squad’s glory years.
While Supercars is essentially a battle between individual teams, Skaife – whose career included stints as a factory driver for Nissan and Holden – stressed the ongoing importance of car companies.
“Gen3 has really demonstrated that a Matt Stone Racing can beat a Triple Eight essentially in the same cars,” he said.
“So the intention of Gen3 has come to the fore, but in the background of Supercars, at our core, we are a car racing business.
“Based on being a car racing business, you have to have the brand rivalry and the commitment from the car companies to achieve those outcomes.”
Every Supercars session from this weekend’s Super440 at Wanneroo Raceway will be live on Fox Sports and Kayo Sports, starting with practice on Friday.
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