Stanaway ‘not planning’ European return in 2018

The 25-year-old has made no secret of his desire to make a full-time switch to Supercars, Stanaway saying as much on the record for the first time more than a year ago after signing a co-driver deal with Super Black Racing for last year’s endurance races.

After looking at options in Australia for this year the Kiwi opted to stick with a shortened Aston Martin WEC programme for this year, and sign a fresh co-driver deal with Prodrive Racing Australia for the long-distance Supercars races.

Now, he’s looking to put an end to his commute between New Zealand and the WEC rounds and focus solely on securing a full-time Supercars seat.

"The only thing that interests me is V8 Supercars so that is the only thing on the radar," Stanaway told the NZ Herald.

"I am not planning on going back to Europe.

"Obviously being at the enduros this year as a co-driver and being around that paddock is what I need to push for a full-time drive next year."

Stanaway was a star performer at the endurance races last year, particularly his drive in mixed conditions during the Sandown 500. He was thought to be in the frame to replace Chris Pither in the Super Black entry run by PRA, before that Racing Entitlements Contract was sold to Tim Blanchard and the SBR programme was shut down.

"There was no serious talk – there were some discussions around the Super Black license that was moving to [Brad Jones Racing] – some very brief discussions about that but nothing serious,” he confirmed to the NZ Herald.

"Nothing obviously materialized for this year but hopefully we can put something together for next year."

That fourth slot at PRA was ultimately taken over by REC owner and driver Jason Bright for 2017, that being a seat that could become available to Stanaway next year should Bright elect to stand down from full-time driving duties.