‘Unjustified’: Burgess, Skaife go head to head
Adrian Burgess backs position, responds to Mark Skaife
Team 18 boss goes up against Skaife on MotorRacing 360
Anton De Pasquale won in Darwin after Skaife criticism
Team 18 Team Principal Adrian Burgess insists the pieces are falling into place for his squad and General Motors, amid a back-and-forth with Mark Skaife.
Burgess’ team struck gold in Darwin with victory for Anton De Pasquale, which came just days after Holden legend Skaife took a swipe at Team 18 and GM.
GM entered Darwin on a 17-race winless streak dating back to De Pasquale’s Sydney win. Skaife took aim, notably claiming Team 18 “don’t operate” like a factory team.
In the immediate aftermath of the Darwin victory, Team 18 owner Charlie Schwerkolt and Burgess both returned serve at Skaife, who in his own reply, stood by his initial comments.
Burgess joined Skaife on the MotorRacing 360 panel on Wednesday, and insisted his team has "got to be able to take the criticism,” whether they think it's justified or not.
However, the championship-winning team boss maintains he disagrees with some of Skaife’s comments, given the latter isn’t embedded within Team 18’s four walls.
“It's not a kick in the backside, but it keeps you honest. It doesn't affect you, but you hear it, so you respond,” Burgess explained.
"But would we have got a result if Skaife didn't say what he said the week before? We would've had the same result.
"We're there to win, and we're trying to win… you don't try any harder because Skaifey said what he said, and some of what he said is true. But a lot of what he said, in my view, is unjustified, because he's not actually in the room. He's not in the team.
"He doesn't know what's going on in the GM program, and specifically what's going on inside our team to get us the performance and achieve the sustained results over a period of time.
“Winning one race doesn't mean you're there. We know we're not there. We know we've got a lot of work to do, but we're putting that in place.”
Sitting next to Burgess, Skaife revealed he recommended Team 18 to GM, but stated the manufacturer needed to hit Ford back following the defection of Triple Eight.
“I was encouraging [GM] to give [Ford] a whack, because that's what it needed to be. It needed to be a really solid whack,” Skaife said.
"I'm the first one to say… you [Team 18] guys winning on Sunday, great. 100% prove me wrong, fantastic, because I think GM deserve to win more races than they have so far.
"Because you think about 14 wins for Ford and only two for GM, that's unacceptable.”
Burgess agreed, yet doubled down on his own comments of rebuilding, quipping that “Rome wasn’t built in a night."
When asked which of Skaife’s comments he took umbrage with, Burgess replied: “Maybe we're not operating as a factory team. I don't know. Define 'operating as a factory team'.
“We are the HT, and without having a go at the other GM teams, where would you have put it? Where would you put that mantle? Where would you give that responsibility to?
"It's not just on the track. There's a lot of work that goes on off track, and with Supercars, and with the governing body.”
The 2026 Repco Supercars Championship resumes at Townsville on July 10-12.
