EXCLUSIVE! Top GM team defecting to Ford

UPDATE: CONFIRMED

GM’s leading Supercars team Triple Eight will defect to Ford next year!

The bombshell switch is to be announced simultaneously in Australia and the USA late Friday morning AEDT.

Amid top-level security, SupercarXtra has learned that Triple Eight will lead Ford’s Supercars assault from 2026, ditching Chevrolet.

The super-secret change has been kept under wraps for weeks as General Motors’ top team in Supercars negotiated a lucrative factory backed defection.

Triple Eight’s big move will coincide with Walkinshaw Andretti United dropping Ford to bring Toyota into the V8 series.

Triple Eight will become Ford’s homologation team, replacing Dick Johnson Racing, which has led the Blue Oval’s return to Supercars with the Mustang since 2019.

The shock change is actually a return to Ford by Triple Eight, which ran factory backed Falcons from 2003-08.

After losing Ford’s support, it famously defected to Holden in 2010 and took over as the official Holden Racing Team in 2017.

The Brisbane-based super-squad has been General Motors’ primary Supercars teams through the death of Holden into Gen3 with the Camaro.

According to informed sources, Triple Eight’s move back to Ford will be jointly announced by team boss Jamie Whincup and Ford Motor Company chief – and racing enthusiast – Jim Farley in a livestream trans-Pacific hook-up.

The deal will be a major announcement during Ford Performance’s racing season launch at the company’s racing hub in North Carolina.

It’s understood the event will be beamed live to Ford Australia’s technical campus at Broadmeadows in Melbourne’s north, attended by major Australian motoring and motor sport media.

Triple Eight’s return to Ford will be a seismic Supercars shake-up, in addition to Toyota’s entry, leaving Chevrolet without an established front-running team.

With Triple Eight, DJR and Tickford Racing, in ’26 Ford will have the most powerful line-up as WAU brings in heavyweight challenger Toyota.

Triple Eight’s re-defection also begs the question of GM’s future in Supercars.

No replacement for the Camaro as Chevrolet’s racing alternative has been nominated for NASCAR, much less locally.

Chevrolet, a super-niche brand in Australia, simply doesn’t have the brand horsepower of Ford’s Mustang.

The impending Triple Eight/Ford alliance is a key development as, I’m reliably informed, RACE seeks to float Supercars on the stock market.

A new broadcast deal is also looming. One way or another, Supercars in 2026 will be very different…