THE end of an era is nigh for a long list of noteworthy partnerships in Supercars and Australian motorsport.
This weekend’s VAILO Adelaide 500 is due to be an emotionally charged affair as various drivers and personnel prepare to move on from their current homes.
V8 Sleuth touches on several of the many break-ups happening.
Shane van Gisbergen and Triple Eight/Supercars
It’s been months in the making but all of a sudden the last hurrah has arrived for SVG.
In just a matter of days, his full-time Supercars Championship career will be over (for now, at the very least) and it will be eyes forward to the NASCAR Cup Series.
Having debuted in Supercars as a teenager, van Gisbergen is now 34 with three championships and three Bathurst 1000 victories to his name – all of which have come since he arrived at Triple Eight in 2016.
There’s an outside chance he could add to that title tally before the weekend is done.
Will Brown and Erebus Motorsport
The man replacing SVG at Triple Eight has the ultimate chance to repay the team which gave him his first shot.
Brown has been part of the Erebus fold since 2018 (full-time in the Supercars Championship from 2021) and has built such a reputation that powerhouse Triple Eight moved to extract him from his 2024 contract to join them.
The wheels have fallen off Brown’s season since his impending Triple Eight defection was announced, but he can still do his bit this weekend to help Erebus secure its maiden drivers’ and teams’ championships before he exits.
Erebus CEO Barry Ryan has already declared Brown will heed to team orders if required to aid series-leading teammate Brodie Kostecki.
Jack Le Brocq and Matt Stone Racing
Continuing the merry-go-round theme, Le Brocq is on the move to take Brown’s place at Erebus.
That will make for a reunion of Le Brocq/Erebus, but it also brings to an end a happy two-year chapter with MSR which has reinvigorated the 31-year-old’s career.
It’s a relationship which has served both parties well, Le Brocq moving onto a grander opportunity – but not before etching MSR into the record books as main game race winners.
Nick Percat and Walkinshaw Andretti United
Percat in turn will replace Le Brocq.
It’s hoped his move to MSR will put him back in the Brad Jones Racing-type of environment in which he flourished, after an ill-fated return to Clayton.
WAU had hired former prodigy Percat with the intention of giving them a proper two-pronged title assault, but for whatever reason, the combination simply never clicked.
Adam De Borre and Chaz Mostert
De Borre and Chaz Mostert are one of the most renowned driver/engineer partnerships in Supercars, but change is afoot.
It’s widely known that De Borre is set to step away from Supercars at season’s end, the guru having masterminded all but one of Mostert’s main game campaigns to date.
In the year they were apart, 2016, Mostert went winless.
How Mostert responds to having a new right-hand man next year, believed to be Sam Scaffidi, will be fascinating.
Tim Edwards and Tickford Racing
The highest-profile non-driver split of course is the end of Edwards’ 19-year reign as Tickford boss.
A new challenge awaits in the form of the Supercars general manager of motorsport role; directly replacing Adrian Burgess.
Tickford without Edwards and vice versa is an odd thought. After all, the Campbellfield squad’s entire history bar two seasons and one win has come with Edwards at the helm.
James Courtney and Declan Fraser are also on the way out of Tickford as the Ford squad downsizes to two cars.
David Reynolds and Grove Racing
Reynolds’ three-year chapter with Grove Racing has seen him return to his larrikin self and chalk up another main game victory.
Reynolds was down and out during the latter stages of his Erebus tenure but has rejuvenated himself with a string of podiums and a special last-start win for the Groves.
This has seemed one of the more harmonious break-ups on the list, Reynolds moving onto a multi-year opportunity with Team 18 while Groves continue to grow into an emerging force.
Scott Pye and Team 18
Reynolds’ imminent arrival at Team 18 signals the end of Pye’s time there.
It’s felt tense at times with Pye potentially unlucky to be bumped out of a full-time seat, but he’ll forever be the man who delivered Team 18 its first, second and third podiums as a standalone squad.
It has also led to him reuniting with Triple Eight, for whom he was once a protégé.
Todd Hazelwood and the Blanchard Racing Team
The 2017 Super2 champion has already conceded he won’t be on the full-time Supercars Championship grid next year after BRT opted for a Courtney/Aaron Love line-up.
It ends a single-year spell for Hazelwood at BRT and a six-year run for the South Aussie in the main game.
Jack Smith and Supercars full-time
Adelaide is the end of the road for Smith after four seasons as a main game regular.
What’s next for the driver and his family-owned Teams Racing Charter is yet to be confirmed, although the latter is expected to be used to field Super2 star Zak Best in 2024.
Aaron Seton and the Supercars dream
It appears that the third-generation Seton’s Supercars Championship career will finish with a single race start: the 2022 Bathurst 1000.
Seton has sporadically flashed pace in his three Super2 seasons and has recorded a pair of third-place finishes, but he’ll now trade driving for a role as a partner in Gomersall Motorsport.
He’s not the only one confirmed to be calling it a day in Super2, with Tickford’s Elly Morrow also in the same boat.
