Photo: V8 Supercars

Walkinshaw Racing aiming for four cars in 2016

Walkinshaw Racing is aiming to run four cars in the 2016 V8 Supercars, although flagging for the possibility to reduce to two cars.

“A lot of that would depend on how the discussions go with Supercheap. We need to make sure we have four fully funded cars and if we have four fully funded cars then that’s what we will focus on doing. And if not, if we think there is a benefit on going to two or three – and we have done that in the past as well – then we will evaluate that closer to the end of the season. We are not going to make any decisions on that now,” said team owner Ryan Walkinshaw to the official championship site.

The team is running four cars this year for Garth Tander and James Courtney at Holden Racing Team, Lee Holdsworth at Charlie Schwerkolt Racing and Tim Slade at Walkinshaw Racing.

The deal for Courtney and Tander at HRT lasts until the end of 2016 while the contract for Slade and title sponsor Supercheap Auto ends after this season.

Walkinshaw is looking positively towards the future with the new Gen2 regulations set for introduction in 2017.

”There is a pretty strong strategy in line with that for Europe and for Australia and there is absolutely no way we are not going to be committed to motorsport next year and hopefully in 10 years. Gen2 is going to be great for the sport. I think it needs to have the open engine formula because to entice more manufacturers and run a healthy sport you need to be able to open up those parameters. To keep the manufacturers that are already in the sport you are going to have to open up those parameters,” said Walkinshaw.