GM Motorsports ties its many racing series together by helping with Cup crossover debuts

Inside a mammoth 130,000-square-foot hub of racing development just north of Charlotte, Dr. Eric Warren often sees signs that GM Motorsports’ global reach is producing a close-knit camaraderie.

Champions and winners from the IndyCar and NASCAR Cup series swap cockpits in high-tech simulators. Their engineers and team managers gather in the same conference rooms to hash out how their vastly different cars are handling on the same racetracks.

“You get that sense of energy when you come in there,” Warren told NBC Sports. “You’ll walk down the hall, and Will Power will be passing Kyle Larson. We have these natural intersections. We’ve been fortunate to have some success, and it drives that environment.

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“I want everyone at GM Motorsports to really have the sense they were racing together and really mattered. So we built everything in our interaction with the teams, and you get that sense when you come in there. I think the drivers get that.”

A champion from another continent entered the mix this month.

Shane van Gisbergen arrived last week from Australia (where he has won three Supercars titles and the prestigious Bathurst 1000 twice) to make his NASCAR Cup Series debut on the streets of downtown Chicago this weekend.

As the new entry in Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91 Chevrolet Camaro, van Gisbergen has spent more than 10 hours behind the wheel in one of the two simulators at GM Motorsports’ Charlotte Technical Center (which is just a few hundred yards from Hendrick Motorsports in Concord, North Carolina).

Warren, who was promoted three months ago from NASCAR program director to executive director of competition at GM Motorsports, said a third simulator will be added in mid-July to help relieve the incessant demand for seat time from every series. Though the cockpits are interchangeable, one sim currently is dedicated to Next Gen, and other is split between the IndyCar and NACAR Xfinity and truck series.

“Everyone is always clamoring for time,” Warren said. “It’ll give us more depth. As we grew the people and technology, it became really clear there are a lot of things that the strength is in tying it into GM engineering production. It happened a lot more seamlessly than I thought it would.”

Warren said there are more than 100 staff members who work on NASCAR and IndyCar, and they are supported by about 50 software engineers.

Though they primarily work on optimizing setups for NASCAR teams such as Hendrick, Trackhouse and Richard Childress Racing, they also have helped drivers form other series get acclimated to Cup.

Formula One champion Kimi Raikkonen, who made the first two starts in the Project 91 car at Watkins Glen International last year and Circuit of the Americas this year, has been in the Charlotte Technical Center simulator.

IMSA champion Jordan Taylor, who drives a Corvette in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, logged several hours in the sim before making his NASCAR Cup debut at COTA in place of Chase Elliott.After driving a Chevrolet in IndyCar, Conor Daly also made the transition to three starts in Cup (making his Roval debut last year and then racing the Daytona 500 and COTA).

Now van Gisbergen, 33, becomes the latest GM Motorsports-affiliated driver in another series to dive into Cup largely with the help of the Charlotte Technical Center.

He has dabbled in American motorsports before – having grown up as a fan of Tony Stewart (whose 2011 championship crew chief, Darian Grubb, will call the shots on the No. 91 at Chicago) and finishing second in the GTD category of the 2015 Rolex 24 at Daytona – but there still is a steep learning curve for van Gisbergen (who has 78 victories and 47 pole positions in Supercars).

In addition to climbing through the window of a race car for the first time in his life, van Gisbergen will be adapting to pit stops without a speed limiter and some strategy nuances. Though he got a short test Monday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, two extended simulator sessions will be his primary exposure to a Cup car before practice and qualifying Saturday in Chicago.

“It’s going to be intense,” van Gisbergen said. “The pit stops are quite different. Just trying to understand that and get ready for it. I’ve always been a fan and to jump straight into the Cup Series is exciting.

“The technical side is similar (to Supercars): A big heavy car with lots of horsepower and not enough tire. That’s similar to what we have. It looks difficult. I’m trying to keep my eyes open and not have too many expectations about the street circuit.”

Though Warren will meet van Gisbergen in person for the first time this week, he has become more familiar with Supercars this year. The Camaro replaced the Holden Commodore as GM’s brand and has been dominating with 14 consecutive victories since Ford won the season opener.

Triple Eight Race Engineering (van Gisbergen’s team) handled homologation of the Camaro while GM developed the engine, but Warren said GM Motorsports has gotten more involved on the technical side in 2023.

“There’s definitely a lot of things similar” from NASCAR to Supercars, Warren said. “So I think he will have an easier transition than Jenson Button or Raikkonen from Formula One. It probably comes down more to the tires and specifics of this car and the engine power curve that will be different. It’s going to be exciting. Jordan Taylor at COTA really did a great job up and was really impressive. Kimi at Watkins Glen really was good.”

Button, who drove the Garage 56 Camaro in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, will be making his second Cup start in Chicago, which might favor those with road and street racing backgrounds. This will mark the first street race in the 75-year history of NASCAR’s premier season.

“It’s new for everyone, so I think of all the tracks Shane could be showing up at, he’s going to be less at a disadvantage for sure,” Warren said.

A strong performance by van Gisbergen would be a credit to the work of Warren and his staff at the Charlotte Technical Center, which has been operational for about 13 months after breaking ground in March 2021.

Warren, who was a part of winning teams at Evernham Motorsports and RCR and also worked at a short-lived U.S.-based F1 startup, has traveled the world recently.

He has attended the Indy 500, Le Mans and the World Endurance Championship event at the Spa circuit in Belgium) to get a handle on GM Motorsports’ various racing teams and potential future programs (he is helping spearhead Andretti Global’s bid to join Formula One).

He also is preparing to help other global champions with making their Cup debuts, which he expects to see “a lot more of, actually.

“Eventually you reach critical mass of people coming to experience it, and they communicate back that these guys are really good over here,” Warren said. “The top-level F1 drivers want to compete and have experience in top level series. They’ve certainly gained a lot of respect for the skill of the other drivers in Cup. That’s been important and gotten more recognition in getting the word out.”