Triple 8 Engineering has confirmed this morning that veteran Supercar driver Craig Lowndes will have brand new sponsorship for the upcoming 2018 Supercars Championship season when Autobarn comes on board the 888 car to become the main naming rights sponsor instead of Caltex.

This is not a new deal per se with Autobarn already featuring on the Triple Eight cars for the past 5 years. However, the move to naming rights sponsor just goes to show how the branding has progressed and worked for both parties.

The new two year deal will see the current Team Vortex renamed to Autobarn Lowndes Racing.

โ€œIt's fantastic to extend the team's very successful partnership with Autobarn, as well as my own personal relationship with them, which began over 15 years ago,โ€ Craig said. โ€œI am grateful of Autobarn's support over these many years and that they've now chosen to take an even stronger position going forward. It has always been a relationship that I have valued highly. I'm pretty excited to roll out a totally new look and I'm looking forward to sharing it with fans early next year.โ€

Peter Tilley, Executive General Manager โ€“ Retail of Bapcor, is greatly looking forward to Autobarn Lowndes Racing hitting the track for at least the next two years as the deal has a clause to be extended.

โ€œWe're delighted to be expanding our partnership with Triple Eight and Craig Lowndes. Autobarn and Triple Eight have enjoyed an excellent relationship since its inception almost five years ago and we're extremely proud to see it go from strength to strength,โ€ he said. โ€œCraig is a fantastic ambassador of both the sport and Autobarn, so for us this is a natural progression of an already highly successful combination.โ€

Caltex won't disappear altogether from the 888 Next Generation Holden Commodoreย  supercar with the 12 year partnership still in place and set to run for another two seasons.