Xiberras’ confession after PremiAir’s second season

PREMIAIR Racing owner Peter Xiberras has a confession.

“I got told when I started, ‘this is a hard category’ – and it is probably harder than I thought,” he told V8 Sleuth after the completion of the 2023 season, PremiAir’s second in the Repco Supercars Championship.

“But the challenge is there, it can be done and I’m hard-headed and I’ll keep going.”

PremiAir burst out of the blocks strongly in the Gen3 era and came close to a podium in the Newcastle season-opener, but faded to ninth in the teams’ championship by the end of last month’s Adelaide 500.

Xiberras though takes inspiration from Erebus Motorsport’s championship success, which Betty Klimenko declared is proof that privateer-type teams can conquer Supercars.

“If they can do it, we can do it. One million percent,” said Xiberras, who also praised Grove Racing for the way they’re rising up the ranks.

“That’s why I am so chuffed that they won it, because it does show that the big teams don’t necessarily always get their way.

“I think it gives us all hope.”

Xiberras knows inconsistency crippled PremiAir this year but does see progress.

“I look back on where we started this year… we’re probably a 10 or 20 times better team than where we started,” he said.

“I can see it’s slowly coming. I’m just impatient, I suppose.”

PremiAir will head into 2024 with a stable driver line-up of Tim Slade and James Golding, and with a continued Triple Eight relationship.