GM explains Supercars, NASCAR transfer plans

That’s the pledge from GM’s Executive Director of motorsport, Eric Warren, who took part in Friday’s announcement of Team 18 as the giant’s new homologation team.

While Team 18 is set to take over the HT tag from Triple Eight, GM’s restructured program will include creating a “central resource” for all the brand’s squads to benefit from.

At the centre of that will be Jeromy Moore, whose start date with GM remains uncertain amid the legalities of his exit from Triple Eight.

Warren confirmed there will be more than just Moore involved from the GM side and wants to deploy NASCAR knowhow to the Australian championship.

“We’ve seen a lot of movement between Supercars drivers into NASCAR,” he said, noting the current presence of Shane van Gisbergen in Chevrolet’s NASCAR ranks.

“We’re seeing it really a lot of cross-development between the NASCAR teams and the Supercar teams.

“I really see an opportunity to cross-pollinate between the series and have some engineers that maybe have worked with larger teams and maybe more formal processes, spend some time in Supercars.

“Certainly, we will have a permanent conduit in place to help support the engineering side of it and really take the knowledge and the abilities…

“Whether it’s software, simulation tools, databases, you name it, how you analyse data, how you look at metrics of data coming off the car, there’s lots of things that are transferable.

“We need someone on the ground that really connects all the engineers.”

Warren emphasised that GM’s efforts will complement that of the individual teams running Camaros in Supercars.

‘Tough decision’: Why GM picked Team 18 over PremiAir

“Really the strength of this is not just us putting people in place,” he said.

“And that’s what I really liked about all of our teams, is whether it’s Ludo [Lacroix] at PremiAir or Barry [Ryan]’s experience at Erebus and the different engineering groups of the teams.

“Our role is really to lift those up and augment what they can do. And I just think there’s great opportunity. So, we will have some permanent staff in place.”

Warren also noted the technical resources available at GM Racing headquarters in the US, which includes four driver-in-the-loop simulators.

“We’ve already communicated, and want to make that clear, there’s going to be some visits, starting immediately this summer, from the Supercars teams coming to visit the facilities in Charlotte, both our technical centre, but also across some of the NASCAR teams,” he said.

“The drivers certainly would be welcome…”