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There’s a trend in Supercars team sponsorship that speaks positively about the way the championship is moving forward.
Last year, just two teams sported matching liveries across its cars, that being powerhouse outfits Dick Johnson Racing (Shell V-Power Racing Team) and Triple Eight Race Engineering (Red Bull Ampol Racing).
This year, the number is five – at least.
On top of DJR and Triple Eight, Grove Racing announced in January a double dose of Penrite backing for its Mustangs, which will be driven by David Reynolds and Lee Holdsworth.
Matt Stone Racing last week unveiled its new Truck Assist Racing identity which is uniform across both its ZB Commodores.
And Boost Mobile last year committed to extending its naming rights partnership with Erebus Motorsport to both cars in 2022, competing under the ‘Boost Mobile Racing powered by Erebus’ banner.
Walkinshaw Andretti United again will have Mobil 1 as co-naming rights on its two entries, too.
PremiAir Racing and Team 18 are yet to confirm their looks for 2022; the single-car Blanchard Racing Team has retained its CoolDrive livery; while the four-car squads of Tickford Racing and Brad Jones Racing arguably involve a different business model.
It might seem trivial to some, but the fact that five (and a half) of eight two-car teams will don uniform liveries should be considered a positive for the market confidence in the Repco Supercars Championship under its new ownership and leadership, and as the Gen3 era approaches.
It’s also a win as far as teams having an identity goes, not to mention for the ease of fans watching their favourite driver/team (as opposed to a team having different looks between its two cars, let alone from round to round).
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Formula 1 has operated to a mantra of uniform liveries for each team with success.
MSR commercial director Al Bye believes there’s even an on-track advantage to it.
“All drivers want to beat each other, but you look at some other teams – I’m not picking on anyone out there – no two cars look the same and you sort of see on-track that they don’t really operate as team-mates either, because they’re not representing the same brand,” Bye told Speedcafe.com.
“You do see Red Bull, at times they hit each other but we all know from TV that they get in trouble when they do that. But generally speaking, they work as a team in every way, those two cars.
“Both drivers want to win and both engineers want to win and the whole team wants to win; that doesn’t have to be compromised, but I think when you operate as one commercial operation, you end up having a better result on the track.
“I think that the drivers will work with each other just a little bit more than they would otherwise, because they know they are representing the same team.”
A number of liveries are due to be revealed in the coming 48 hours as Victorian teams prepare to begin pre-season testing at Winton Motor Raceway on Tuesday.