BLANK SHEET FOR NEW SUPERCARS TEAM OWNER

The newest team in Supercars is a blank sheet of paper for its owner, Peter Xiberras.

Team Sydney is dead and, after purchasing the assets of Tekno Autosports from Jono Webb, the successful Sydney businessman and Top Fuel racer says he is racing to get the team ready for the start of the 2022 championship.

Xiberras already has the necessary permission to become a team principal from the new owners of Supercars, SAFE, but says everything else is up in the air.

“It’s a blank sheet. I have got to find a lot of people to fill in the blanks,” Xiberras tells Auto Action.

“I’m looking for the right team manager, the right engineers and the right mechanics.”

On the driver front, despite Tekno Autosports’ existing agreements with Fabian Coulthard and Garry Jacobson, Xiberras says nothing is decided.

“No-one has a guaranteed slot. We have four options on the table right at the moment. We’re going through the right options.”

Xiberras plans to operate the born-again squad as PremiAir Hire Racing, the same title he uses for his Top Fuel operation.

PremiAir Hire Racing’s Top Fuel team

It is named after his booming hire business, which was founded 25 years ago and operates in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

Ironically, its headquarters is at Eastern Creek, just five minutes from Sydney Motorsport Park.

But Xiberras has already ruled out a continuation of the Team Sydney model proposed by Webb and supported by Supercars and the NSW government.

“I do love the idea of Team Sydney. There is no Supercars team that runs out of Sydney, and I think there needs to be one,” he says.

“I would love to make it work one day. But, with where we are trying to recruit staff, there are not enough offerings. I have to go where the right people are located.”

Xiberras already had a foothold at Tekno as a major sponsor and owned one of the team’s ZB Commodores.

He plans to continue with the cars, which were built by Triple Eight, through season 2022 before the switch to Gen3 racers.

Xiberras is making no predictions for the team, which has been woeful in recent seasons and the subject of more than a year of sale rumours, most recently with Boost Mobile boss Peter Adderton talking big about a potential buy-out.

It was only 11th in last year’s teams’ ranking, the worst of the two-car operations, and a massive slump from the days when Shane van Gisbergen was a title contender and Webb won the Bathurst 1000 in 2016 with Will Davison.

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