PremiAir names new Slade engineer

PremiAir Racing has named a new race engineer for the Chevrolet Camaro which Tim Slade will drive in the 2023 Repco Supercars Championship.

Phillip Di Fazio has moved into that role on Car #23, taking over the reins from Sheldon Auhl.

“Please join us in welcoming Phillip Di Fazio to PremiAir Racing!” read a tweet from the team.

“Phillip will be the engineer on the #23 PremiAir Racing Camaro, driven by Tim Slade.

“Tim and Phil have worked together with great success before as part of the HubAuto GT team.”

Please join us in welcoming Phillip Di Fazio to PremiAir Racing!

Phillip will be the engineer on the #23 PremiAir Racing Camaro, driven by Tim Slade.

Tim and Phil have worked together with great success before as part of the HubAuto GT team. #WeArePremiAir #RepcoSC pic.twitter.com/usEVRRAqr2

— PremiAir Racing (@premiairracing) February 28, 2023

The Sydney-based Di Fazio has been the Team Director at HubAuto Racing since the beginning of 2017.

It was with that outfit which Slade won the California 8 Hours at Laguna Seca in 2019, and with which he was slated to contest a full Intercontinental GT Challenge campaign in the following year until the outbreak of COVID-19.

The two-time Supercars Championship race winner would still pair up with Scott McLaughlin for that year’s Bathurst 1000, with the duo finishing fifth in the #17 Dick Johnson Racing Ford Mustang.

Slade spent the next two years as a primary driver at the Blanchard Racing Team before his off-season switch to PremiAir, joining incumbent James Golding, who remains in Car #31.

The Arundel-based outfit is yet to confirm co-drivers for this year’s Supercars enduros although Dylan O’Keeffe and Joey Mawson both drove at last week’s Sydney Motorsport Park test.

O’Keeffe partnered Golding in last year’s Bathurst 1000 while Mawson, a two-time S5000 championship winner, is seeking to make his Supercars debut.

Both PremiAir Camaros are in action today in their final pre-season test, joined at Queensland Raceway by the #97 Triple Eight Race Engineering car of Shane van Gisbergen as well as both of the Matt Stone Racing and DJR entries.

Tomorrow, Tickford Racing – including new #56 Mustang engineer Chris Stuckey – Walkinshaw Andretti United, Team 18, and Grove Racing are all set to do likewise at Winton.