JOEY Mawson has revealed he applied to the FIA to help secure a highly anticipated Repco Supercars Championship debut, but to no avail.
For a new driver to race in Supercars, they must have a Motorsport Australia Superlicence and either have completed six Super2 rounds or have an FIA Platinum/Gold licence.
Mawson, a two-time Gold Star winner who beat Mick Schumacher to the 2016 ADAC Formula 4 title, has an MA Superlicence but does not meet either of the latter criteria.
Having been the early frontrunner to co-drive at PremiAir Racing – Tim Slade is understood to have been particularly supportive – Mawson’s attempt to upgrade his FIA licence from Silver to Gold fell on deaf ears.
“That’s the route that I tried to take and that route is unfortunately not working,” he told V8 Sleuth.
“I’ve had support from Motorsport Australia to basically endorse and get myself upgraded but the FIA have simply stuck to their regulations, which means the revision is done at the end of the year in November/December.
“We requested an earlier revision but the FIA didn’t even respond.”
That’s left Mawson resigned to the fact that he’ll almost certainly be sidelined for yet another Bathurst 1000.
“Unfortunately it’s starting to look that way,” said the 27-year-old.
“I’m still obviously pushing for it behind the scenes, trying to see politically what we can do but it’s obviously not looking great at this stage.
“PremiAir have been nice enough to give me a fair bit of time to try sort it out but I also respect at the same time that the enduros are coming up and time is running out.
“I’m still pushing for it but I’ve told them where it’s at and if they obviously need to find a replacement, I’m not going to be offended because they have been kind enough to give me months and months and months to try to sort this out and unfortunately it hasn’t.”
Kurt Kostecki and Matt Chahda are now the favourites in the race to pair up with Slade in the #23 Camaro, with both due to cut laps today at Queensland Raceway.
If Mawson’s end-of-year FIA revision proves successful, he’s hopeful of a 2024 Supercars debut.
