Toyota ‘advanced’ in second Supercars team talks

The Japanese carmaker has been working to a clear plan for its entry to Supercars next season which involves there being four new Supras on the grid.

Two will come from homologation outfit Walkinshaw Andretti United with a second yet-to-be-appointed team to run the other two.

Following the Toyota announcement there was a flurry of interest in the second Toyota ‘slot’ with Team 18 quickly emerging as the favourite to land a Supra deal.

That has since been deeply complicated by Triple Eight’s impending defection to Ford, which has given GM the carrot of homologation duties to shop around to its current line-up.

That too has seemingly piqued Team 18’s interest with the squad being touted as a frontrunner along with PremiAir Racing.

It could be that whichever doesn’t end up as the GM HT will switch to Toyota.

Not that Toyota’s marketing boss Sean Hanley, who has driven the Supercars program, is worried about what GM may have to offer its teams.

“We can only control what we control,” he told Speedcafe.

“We had no knowledge of anything that was happening with GM homologation team changes, it has no material impact on our direction. We just keep going.”

Money could be a critical factor given that the GM homologation role is a paying job, thought to be worth somewhere in the vicinity of $300,000 to $500,000.

What is unknown is what Toyota is offering a potential second team in terms of changeover cost, given the switch would require four brand new engines and either the cost of building new chassis, or re-skinning existing ones.

Hanley wouldn’t be drawn on what Toyota was willing to pay, but made it clear that it is in the market and talks are “somewhat advanced”.

“Obviously the commercials of any transfer of any team are an important part of any business arrangement,” he said.

“We’ll work through that with whoever our preferred second team is.

“We’re somewhat advanced on that right now. We don’t have announcements today, but we’re not far away.

“We understand that the team needs to make their relevant arrangements. They need to have relevant testing time, track time, time with Walkinshaw, all of those things.”

What isn’t an option, says Hanley, is heading into next season with only the WAU Supras in the field.

“There’s going to be four [Supras] on that fricken grid in January 2026, make no mistake about it,” he said.

“We’re searching for a second team. We’re close, we think, to coming to that arrangement, and then beyond that, we’ll probably look at a third team – but that probably won’t be until 2027.”