Future
In the middle of 2008, a working group known as the "Car of the Future" project and led by former driver Mark Skaife was organised by V8 Supercars to investigate future directions for the sport. The working group had the primary objective of cutting costs to just A$250,000 per car, with a projected timeline of introducing the new formula for the 2013 season. The plan was unveiled in March 2010 at Crown Casino and incorporated several key changes to the internal workings of the car, with the differential, brakes, cooling and fuel systems all changed to a control - or identical - component for all cars, as well as changes to the rear suspension and engine. Notably, the Car of the Future plan aims to encourage more manufacturers to enter the sport - provided that they have four-door saloon cars currently in mass production. While the plans were well received by all of the teams, Holden chief Simon McNamara warned potential new manufacturers to stay out of the championship just hours after the plans were released, claiming that they would "gain nothing" from entering the series, (which as of 2010 fields twice as many Holdens as Fords).
Along with the release of the Car of the Future plans, V8 Supercars Australia Chairman Tony Cochrane detailed plans dubbed "Phase Two", intended to look at the direction of the sport in the first five years of the Car of the Future's introduction. In addition to more manufacturers, Phase Two plans include adding to the sport's international appeal by including races in India, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Africa, as well as two brand-new domestic races.
In addition to the Phase Two plans, the FIA has announced that V8 Supercars will head to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas in 2013. In August 2011, it was revealed that V8 Supercars Australia was in the process of negotiating to hold a race at Clark International Speedway in the Philippines from 2013.
Nissan later confirmed that they would enter the series under Car of the Future regulations with Kelly Racing. Reactions to the manufacturer's decision to join the category were mixed, with the team reportedly receiving hate mail over their decision to part company with long-time supplier Holden. Stone Brothers Racing, in conjunction with Australian GT Championship team Erebus Racing later confirmed they would be adapating Mercedes-AMG cars to the new regulations.
Read more about this topic: V8 Supercars
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Bobby read his future in women; his girls were omens, changes in the weather, and he’d sit all night in the Gentleman Loser waiting for the season to lay a new face down in front of him like a card.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“He will calmly front the morrow in the negligency of that trust which carries God with it, and so hath already the whole future in the bottom of the heart.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)