WHILE news of Nissan muscling in on the traditional Holden versus Ford line-up has captured the headlines, movement behind the scenes will also shakeup the V8 Supercars Championship landscape in 2013.
Ahead of last weekend’s test day at Sandown there was already plenty of action as teams started to finalise their driver line up and real their liveries for the year ahead.
There have been plenty of moves with both drivers and sponsors swapping teams and moving around during a busy off-season.
Some of the biggest teams have remained stable. Ford Performance Racing, the Holden Racing Team and Team Vodafone will all retain their drivers and major sponsors, although David Reynolds will fill the FPR seat left empty by the retirement of Paul Dumbrell.
Stone Brothers have one new recruit in Lee Holdsworth, with the former Garry Rogers Motorsport driver switching manufacturers to replace Alex Davison. He joins existing drivers Shane van Gisbergen and Tim Slade.
Some of the biggest moves have come from midfield teams.
Late last week one of the big puzzle pieces fell into place when Kelly Brothers announced that Karl Reindler would drive their fourth car, with Todd and Rick Kelly and Greg Murphy all returning.
It paved the way for Reynolds to be released from his contract and he has now been announced as the driver of the Bottle-O entry.
Reindler took his Fair Dinkum Sheds sponsorship from Brad Jones Racing, who have also had plenty of changes.
Jason Bright will still drive the Team BOC Commodore but his new team-mates will be David Wall in the Wilson Security backed car and Fabian Coulthard in the Lockwood entry.
The changes keep coming with Dick Johnson Racing forming a four-car super team.
Steven Johnson and Dean Fiore will be in Jim Beam backed vehicles while James Moffat will drive a Norton backed Falcon. Their fourth car will be the Steve Owen VIP Petfoods car, which has switched from Holden.
The biggest shock in the liveries unveiled so far has been by Team Vodafone who has switched from their distinctive silver and orange to a red and black car. It is the biggest change since Vodafone came on board as major sponsor in 2007 and their logo will now be white on the predominantly red car.
HRT have also made significant changes with their logo on the side of the car now a distinctive gold colour with matching gold rims. There was talk that major sponsor Toll would only be backing one car this season but that hasn't turned out to be correct and both cars will run identical liveries.
There is a little bit of irony about the announcement that Nissan will re-join the V8 series. They were welcomed with open arms by some of the heavyweights of the sport last Thursday but 20 years ago they were forced out of the competition because the turbo-powered Skylines were too dominant.
The Kelly brothers and John Crennan did well to organise the deal after they failed to secure factory backing from Holden and new V8 Supercars Commission chairman Mark Skaife has been very vocal about encouraging new manufacturers.
However, given that Kelly Racing were the ones who organised the deal, it was strange to see V8 Supercars boss Tony Cochrane overseeing the event as if he was one of the powerbrokers in the deal.
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