Whincup's open letter to Triple Eight fans

Triple Eight Race Engineering Team Principal Jamie Whincup has penned an open letter to fans of his team following the bombshell news of its switch to Ford.

Announced Friday, the reigning Supercars champion team confirmed it will field Ford Mustangs in Supercars from 2026.

The news was confirmed less than three weeks before the beginning of the 2025 Repco Supercars Championship. Triple Eight will continue to compete in Supercars as Red Bull Ampol Racing.

Triple Eight has also been nominated to become Ford’s homologation team in Supercars, subject to ratification by a majority vote of Ford's Supercars teams.

The dominant team of Supercars of the last 15 years, Triple Eight returns to Ford, having begun life in the championship in 2003 with the famous brand. In 2010, the team made a headline-making switch to Holden.

Many fans followed the team from Ford to Holden, with Triple Eight becoming the General Motors homologation team in Supercars in 2017, also carrying the 'Holden Racing Team' moniker.

Between 2010 and 2024 with GM, Triple Eight won seven of its record 10 Bathurst 1000s, nine drivers’ championships and 11 of its record 12 teams’ championships.

In response to Friday's news, GM said it was disappointed to see Triple Eight move to Ford, but was determined to end with the team on a winning note in 2025.

Whincup said the timing is "exactly right" to come back to Ford, but insisted GM was a big part of the team's history, thanking GM for welcoming Triple Eight in 2010 and going on the journey.

Whincup's full letter reads:

Hi everyone,

On behalf of all my team mates, past and present, we’ve got some really exciting news to share with you today.

Our main objective at Triple Eight is to entertain people, bring people joy, watching our race cars go around tracks at silly speeds. We want to inspire people to push a little harder, go a little further, push the boundaries to generate new experiences.

From the start of the 2026 season, I’m very excited to announce that we’ll be the official homologation team and performance partner of Ford Performance. Of course, a huge part of this partnership will be managing the Gen3 Supercar program, but our plan is for it to extend much further than that.

Our partnership extends from our desire to be performance partners, across multiple levels of motorsport where Ford want to showcase their world class products.

Ford have a rich history in worldwide motorsport and nothing highlights this more than their commitment to the Red Bull Formula One team which also debuts in 2026. Aligning manufacturers with Red Bull’s major motorsport commitment will only further strengthen the partnership.

It’s important to know, our biggest attraction to committing to this change, is the fact that so many Aussies already love this great brand, with over 100,000 new Ford’s sold in 2024.

Our mission is to take the learnings that we’ve developed in motorsport the last 20 years to allow everyone the opportunity to experience it in some way shape or form in their everyday travel.

We have serious passion about everything we do at Triple Eight which makes the timing exactly right to come back to this great brand. We are very very proud of everything we have achieved in our 20 year history, which includes 15 years representing the Holden/GM brand and their supporters. We can’t thank you enough for accepting us back in 2010 and enjoying the journey with us.

Right now, we’re looking forward to bringing you proper motorsport action, fighting for another Supercar Championship with Will and Broc, and we can’t wait to share further detail with you on our 2026 plans as soon as we can. We hope to see you trackside real soon.

Jamie

Tickets to the Sydney 500 - Opening Round, on February 21-23, are on now.