Fabian Coulthard should be racing in a Supercar this year. That is at least according to his current multi-season deal he signed a tad over 12 months ago.
But that could easily not be the case following yesterday’s revelation the ailing Team Sydney outfit has been sold.
PremiAir Racing is the newest team on the Supercars block. Not exactly the flashiest name, but it’ll suffice.
The team principal to-be is PremiAir Hire managing director Peter Xiberras, who has an entirely clean slate from which to build a Supercars race team.
A team that needs to be built within six weeks.
A team that does not have a base right now (Victoria and Queensland are hot favourites).
And, importantly, a team that doesn’t actually have any staff. And staff include drivers.
Basically, the next few weeks of Xiberras’ life is a real-life version of those repetitious Motorsport Manager mobile games.
Coulthard is not guaranteed a seat this season. Nor is Garry Jacobson, who partnered the Kiwi last year in the second Team Sydney car.
Xiberras had no comment on the driver front during yesterday’s media rounds. He did tell AutoAction, though, there were “four options on the table” concerning drivers.
“No one has a guaranteed slot,” he said. “We’re going through the right options.”
At 39, Coulthard isn’t expected to be in Supercars for too many more years.
Had Team Sydney still existed, as did his multi-year contract, Coulthard likely would have retired with the squad sometime soon.
Even so, the popular Kiwi will probably be wanting a better swansong than his arduous 2021 season.
Coulthard scored the least points of any full-time driver and didn’t claim a single top-ten finish.
His best result was an 11th at Sydney Motorsport Park. But even that stands out as an anomaly in a season where his average finish was 19th.
In fairness, the Team Sydney cars were incredibly uncompetitive all of last season.
But as a 13-time race winner, Coulthard remains one of Supercars’ most respected veterans.
Still, with nothing guaranteed moving forward, the next few weeks will soon tell us if we have already seen the last of him.