THE winningest driver in Adelaide 500 history will tackle the streets of the South Australian capital next weekend – but not in a Supercar.
Triple Eight Race Engineering managing director Jamie Whincup has been confirmed to compete in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS season finale, partnering Prince Abu Bakar Ibrahim.
A huge crash for the latter brought an early end to the combination’s campaign at the recent Bathurst International and has necessitated a special delivery.
With the substantial damage not yet fixed, Triple Eight is shipping in one of its internationally based Mercedes-AMG GT3 cars with which it contests GT World Challenge Asia.
That has allowed Whincup a racing return to a particularly happy hunting ground from his Supercars days.
No other driver has come close to the 11 Adelaide 500 race wins which Whincup amounted, Craig Lowndes next highest on the list with six.
It will be a two-pronged Triple Eight approach to the Adelaide GT round, with Prince Jefri Ibrahim to be joined by Nick Foster in the sister Mercedes.
With Supercars duo Shane van Gisbergen and Broc Feeney focusing on their final starts in Holden machinery, Triple Eight has turned to its GTWC Asia spearhead Foster, who won the 2015 Carrera Cup Australia title.
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It’s a big weekend for Triple Eight, which will run Holden tribute liveries on its Repco Supercars Championship entries and is vying to seal its second successive Super2 crown.
If Declan Fraser can hang on, the Banyo squad would become the first team in history to win the Supercars drivers’ and teams’ championships, Bathurst 1000 and Super2 title all in a single year.
