Holden Commodore for Team Vodafone in 2010
July 29, 2009 by Matt Brogan
Reigning V8 Supercar and three-time Bathurst 1000 Champions, TeamVodafone, and its drivers, Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup, will race Holden Commodores from 2010.
Holden Executive Director Sales, Marketing and Aftersales, Alan Batey made the announcement at a press conference held at GM Holden headquarters in Melbourne today.
“Holden has a long and proud history in motorsport that stretches back over 40 years and today’s announcement is an exciting step into the next chapter,” Mr Batey said. “Our commitment and passion for motorsport has not waived. Today we are making a clear statement on how much we value this sport which is also a very smart, responsible sponsorship decision. We are very excited about working with TeamVodafone and are thrilled to welcome back both Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup to the Holden family.”
TeamVodafone was formed out of the UK-based Triple Eight Race Engineering, winning multiple British Touring Car Championships with the factory GM Vauxhall team.
In its five short years in the V8 Supercar Championship Series, TeamVodafone has evolved from series debutants into the category powerhouse.
From 2004 to the end of last season, TeamVodafone had scored 12 pole positions, won 24 championship rounds and 38 individual race victories, including three straight Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 titles and the 2008 V8 Supercar Driver and Teams Championships.
In 2009, TeamVodafone has continued its impressive run scoring three pole positions, winning nine out of 12 races year to date and again leading both the Driver and Teams Championships after six of 14 Championship events.
“We are delighted to join the Holden family,” TeamVodafone Managing Director, Roland Dane said. “Triple Eight Race Engineering started running with General Motors in the UK, winning many races and Championships, and it was only an anomaly due to circumstances that we did not race Holdens when we began in V8 Supercars. I have always wanted to put that right when the opportunity arose, which it now has.”
Dane said its association with GM was quite emotional.
“Although our relationship with GM in Europe is due to end, again due to circumstances, we recognise that we would not have got to where we are without them,” continued Mr Dane. “It is an emotive topic for Triple Eight and we feel that as we have grown with GM that we should continue to live together with them, here with Holden.”
Last week Dane confirmed that the team had re-signed with major naming rights sponsor Vodafone for another three years, and that Lowndes and Whincup would also be with the team through to the end of the 2012 season.
Reigning V8 Supercar Champion Jamie Whincup said he was excited by the prospect of returning to Holden.
“Personally, I am very excited, I started my V8 Supercar career in Holden teams and didn’t quite get the results I wanted so now I have the chance to rectify that,” Whincup said. “Triple Eight is a cohesive and dedicated team and I am very confident that we can continue to record similar results when we climb aboard our new Commodores to start the 2010 season. I look forward to working with Holden and hope that we can shoot for further championship success together.”
The V8 Supercar Championship Series is Australia‟s premier motor racing category, the category racing in front of approximately 1.5 million people over the course of a 15 event season with a cumulative national television audience of approximately 20 million.
After seven events on the 2009 calendar attendances are up over seven per cent on last year, with over 168,000 attending the inaugural Dunlop Townsville 400 recently – TV audiences up 11 per cent over the corresponding round in 2008.
Source: Holden
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Obviously people do not read the news, Holden is owned by GM who went bankrupt, the CEO took a $1 a year salary and it still didn’t help, so the goverment stepped in, the only US car maker to refuse the government bail out was…… you guessed it FORD, not that that means anything to Ford Australia, because it is a seperate entity, meaning Ford Australia is owned by Ford Australia, hence making it the ONLY Australian car maker.
Now onto the other points, Team Vodafone are a bunch of whinging Poms, and as I said in an earlier post, it’s one thing to have good drivers and a good team, but without a good car, all that doesn’t mean a thing, as someone lese said, I will be laughing next year when the Vodafone cars are sniffing around the ass end of the field.
Whincup, Lowndes and Dane should hang their heads in shame, they were part of a good thing, a very good thing, and they’ve tossed it away all for a bit of extra coin, I dunno about other people but I’d rather be an untouchable winner and champion than to bo rich…. why? Because once you become a winner, you get rich anyway, so u get the best of both worlds.
And to all those Holden fans, laugh it up before the next season starts, coz once it does start, you’ll all be eating ur hats and cursing at your preferred brand for wasting money on something that is destined to fail.
Holdens philosophy when it comes to engines – Screw technology, we’ll just give it more cubes.
Holdens philosohpy when it comes to the public – Screw the morons we’ll tell them that we’re Australian, even though we’re not, the idiots will believe it
Holdens philosophy when it comes to racing – If you can’t beat them, first have a cry about they way the operate, then if that doesn’t work…. buy them.
Holdens philosophy when it comes to new cars – We’ll give it the same name as a car which failed to sell two years ago(Cruze), maybe the public has forgotten.
Holden philosophy to GM going bust – Well tell the public that it won’t affect us at all, even though we can no longer export the Bomb-a-dore, and we can no longer import the Astra… (umm, hello, how could that NOT affect your company???)
Not real bright on the ‘red’ side of the fence are they?
MY GOD the anti-spam word was Holden! As if this news wasn’t bad enough already!!!
Anyways V*SC licenses should be allocated 50% Ford, 50% Olden. Really it is V8SC who should also be enticing new entrants into the sport.
Anyways Ford will have some younger drivers who will hopefully step up (Courtney, Cheeseburger, W/Bottom) who will hopfully have there teams step up and produce some wins.
Lol…… cheeseburger???? WTF? lol
LSD- you obviously are a bit slow. Holden is a totaly seperate entity to GM USA. They were never effected by the bunkruptcy proceedings. If you read the original documents presented to the court proceedings, GM Holden was sperated from GM some couple of years ago and is its own company. This was confirmed by Holden some weeks ago when the rumors of a Chinese takeover. Part of the US Governments bailout was a stipulation that NO US governments money (tax payers money) was to be used in any GM owned, part owned or affiliated (read Holden) companies overseas. That was also a stipulation made by our Government to the money given to Holden (as well as Ford and Toyota)meaning the money could not be siphoned off to the overseas divisions. Holden ARE NOT receiving any US tax payers money!
Michael I love your passion for Ford but let me correct you. Ford Australia are wholely owned by Ford US, just like Holden is wholely owned by GM. They’re both as Australian as each other, with Holden having the advantage of a unique name so they can claim they are the only Australian company.
Anyway Ford had to cut back funding somewhere so had to cut funding for some teams. They were never not going to back FPR considering Prodrive own a fair slice of FPR. Now I believe Ford were going to support 888 until the incident last year where Lowndes was meant to drive the FG show car but then vodafone cut in and said lowndes wouldnt be driving it because he was contracted to wear a vodafone race suit. A little dispute came about so James Courtney drove the car. 2 weeks later Ford annouces they are withdrawing support for Team Vodafone. Obviously something has happened in the background where Vodafone and Ford couldn’t see eye to eye. I can definately say that Ford didn’t withdrawl support because the cars were the wrong colour. All they needed was a splash of blue like last year.
Ok back to the topic. I don’t think you’ll see 888 winning races right away. Yes the cars are similar but they still have different handling characteristics. 888 will be going to all tracks with virtually “no data”. Granted its a similar situation this year going from BF to FG but the aero package is the virtually the same. Whereas the VE has a vastly different aero balance because it is much wider. 888 will be up the front but dont expect the domination you see atm for at least 12 months. They will win races though they are too good not too.
Oh 888 will still be building customer cars, holden & Ford. Thats their major cash flow right now so they won’t stop building customer cars. Not the 1st time that has happened either, in 1995 Larry Perkins built Tony Longhurst an EF Falcon while Larry continued building his commodores.
Mad Max…..a total separate identity? are you stupid? Its called GM Holden…….not Holden and they are directly affected by the bankruptcy!! They may not be directly recieving U.S. money but they are reliant on U.S. money to keep GM going so it doesnt matter what you think they are only still here because of U.S. bailout money. Holden are totally reliant on GM. And who knows how long GM can carry a company like Holden who keep losing money? GM have no money for new models and thet will affect Holden because thats where their money and most of the Commodore comes from. You have no idea have you?
As for not being affected……….you obviously havent heard of Pontiac. lol
Glen, sorry but I disagree, Ford Australia is exactly that, Ford Australia, they receive no finding, no parts, no nothing, even the Boss V8 has to be bought, shipped here then assembled here, unlike GMH and their V8’s they are shipped over complete, ready to be dropped into their cars.
If you wanna get down to the nitty gritty, Ford is more australian than Holden, and the Falcon is the only Australian car, it’s designed here, built here, everything, unlike the Commodore, which for a large majority of its life, was a rip off of the Opel Omega
Once again Michael i like your passion but again your wrong. Ford Australia is its own seperate division yes, yet is still wholly American owned. Holden is exactly the same Holden is just another name for GM Australia. They get the vast majority of their funding from the US.
I agree with you that Ford is more australian with engineering and manufacturing with their products but the thing is in reality the only Australian part about Ford & Holden is the Falcon and Commodore. Yes the Commodores were originally cut and shut euro opel models but (and I haven’t found any evidence to contradict this) the VE commodore is on an Aussie developed platform, designed with help from the Americans.
Glen you are also forgetting the territory…. you know that class leading vehicl that even car advice themselves say is a benchmark in its catergory despite its age. Australians designing for australian conditions i guess, rather than ringing up GM Daewoo for a new range of rebadges.
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