PREMIAIR Racing has joined fellow Chevrolet Supercars outfit Matt Stone Racing in opting to run potential co-driver candidates today at Queensland Raceway.
MSR is giving seat time at its test day to Jaylyn Robotham, who is the firm favourite to partner Cameron Hill in the Sandown 500 and Repco Bathurst 1000.
The picture is a little less clear at PremiAir, which is yet to announce a co-driver for Tim Slade’s #23 entry. The sister car of James Golding has had Dylan O’Keeffe locked in since pre-season.
Kurt Kostecki and Matt Chahda are set to cut laps today, with the former tipped to have his nose in front at this stage.
Joey Mawson had been the early favourite to co-drive with Slade but has run into difficulty to get approval from Supercars, given he has not contested the requisite six Super2 rounds nor has a Platinum/Gold FIA licence.
Chahda meanwhile is again racing in Super2 this season, with the second-tier stalwart fifth in the standings.
He and Robotham made their Bathurst 1000 debuts together in a privateer wildcard last year.
Kostecki has prior experience with MSR, having teamed up with brother Jake in 2021 before both headed to Tickford Racing. As yet, Jake is unsigned in any capacity for this season.
V8 Sleuth understands Jonathon Webb will also make a Gen3 cameo on-track at QR as a favour extended by PremiAir owner Peter Xiberras.
Webb owned Tekno Autosports/Team Sydney, which was sold to Xiberras in January 2022 to create PremiAir Racing.
The 2016 Bathurst 1000 winner has been entirely ruled out as a contender to co-drive with Slade, though.
Another new face in the PremiAir garage today is veteran engineer Brett Bull.
Bull long ago worked in Supercars with the likes of Dick Johnson Racing and nowadays is a GT3 specialist for Melbourne Performance Centre.
He was called on to assist running the #23 Camaro today with the team’s fill-in engineers Blake Smith and Rhys Lenegan unavailable.
Geoffrey Slater oversees the engineering department as a whole, in addition to being on the cans for Golding.
