That’s despite the expanded Triple Eight team being prevented from running its three cars in consecutive garages.

Whincup was adamant the SCT Motorsport Mustang would be housed alongside the two Red Bull entries when the customer deal was announced last year.

Triple Eight previously operated under that structure from 2016-18, when its Craig Lowndes-driven third car shared a pit boom with the single-car Tekno Autosports.

However, the SCT entry’s move from Brad Jones Racing left the third BJR car as the only other without a pit lane partner in the 24-car field.

That led to various interpretations of how the pit lane would work.

Supercars has subsequently reworded its pit lane rules and clarified that the SCT car, which is deemed a one-car team, will be paired with the third BJR entry.

The odd couple will be tethered to whichever is the lower ranked of the two-car Triple Eight or BJR squads in the teams’ championship that determines the pit lane order.

Reigning teams’ champion Triple Eight is therefore set to start the year with its Red Bull cars at the head of the order and the SCT Mustang in the second half of the pack with BJR.

The issue was hammered out towards the end of last year and made official today via the public release of the final 2026 operations manual.

Third Triple Eight, BJR cars to form ‘team’

“It’s a reasonable outcome for us, it seems like the fairest and most reasonable outcome for all parties,” Whincup told Speedcafe.

“They’ve changed the rules to change what we’ve normally done historically, but it’s a unique situation.

“In an ideal world we’d have the car beside [our other entries], but we know that heavily compromises the rest of the field.

“We just want what’s the best solution for all of us and we feel like collectively we’ve come up with the best call.”

The Supercars pit lane structure is built around pairs of cars, with 12 pit booms for the 24-car field.

Last year there were 10 two-car teams and the four-car BJR, leaving no such issues over odd numbers outside of wildcards.

Whincup expects Triple Eight will share crew with BJR to service the SCT entry during pit stops, but said discussions around details are yet to occur.

Both teams are busy preparing new cars for the season, with Triple Eight switching from GM to Ford and BJR from GM to Toyota.

“At the moment we’re just trying to get our own ducks in a row,” he said.

“No doubt we will have to share [people], but I don’t believe that discussion has happened as of yet.

“But it’ll be single car garages with walls down either side and a shared pit boom.”