Chahda sticks with LDM

Matt Chahda expects to drive for Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport this year regardless of the outcome of debate over his CAMS license.

The 23-year-old has told Supercars.com that he is ready to slot into the squad’s Dunlop Super2 Series program if he remains ineligible for the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.

Chahda was announced as LDM’s second main series driver at last week’s season launch, but the moment was short lived as CAMS immediately issued a statement saying it had denied his application for a Superlicense.

Failing to meet the minimum points requirement for the new-for-2017 license, Chahda had been hoping for a dispensation similar to that received by LDM’s other signing, 16-year-old Alex Rullo, earlier in the week.

Although neither Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport nor CAMS are commenting on the matter, it is understood that the team has not given up on its quest to gain dispensation for Chahda.

Chahda will join Rullo at LDM’s test at Winton tomorrow and says he’s staying out of higher level discussions about his license.

“I’m not really worrying myself with it,” he told Supercars.com.

“Either way I’m planning to be with LDM, but whether it’s Level 1 (Virgin Australia Supercar Championship) or Super2 is still not 100 percent.

“They have three cars ready to go, so if we get completely rejected for Level 1 we’ll run that (the third car in Super2) instead.

“The whole thing about main game was that I was really excited with the amount of seat time I’d get to do.

“But I’d be happy to drop back into Super2 and do another season there and push hard to do well.

“I’m not completely shattered, my world isn’t ruined, I’m still happy to go racing and thankful to LDM for everything they’re doing for me.

“The last two years I’ve been in a 10-year-old car preparing it and engineering it myself with my family helping out.

“I’m excited to be with an established team that has data and experience I can work with.

“We’ve been flying blind in the last couple of years and we’ve had to step up the way we’re doing it in order to get results.

“At the time we couldn’t find a good Super2 drive and the opportunity with LDM was there, so we just went for it.”

A number of drivers are understood to have been in discussions with LDM to take Chahda’s seat, should a replacement be required.

Among them are last year’s LDM full-timer Andre Heimgartner, Super2 runner Kurt Kostecki – who would also need dispensation for a Superlicense – and 2016 LDM enduro driver Aaren Russell.