MOTORSPORT: COVID pushes Supercars back
Tasmania SuperSprint delayed by a week due to Brisbane coronavirus clusterThe Repco Supercars championship has taken its second COVID hit of 2021.
The postponement of the 2021 Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix to November was the first setback for Supercars, which was intended to lead the F1 undercard at Albert Park.
And now the coronavirus situation in Queensland has forced a one-week delay to the touring car championship’s visit to Tasmania.
The Beaurepairs Tasmania SuperSprint will now be held on April 17-18 at Symmons Plains near Launceston, provided there is no escalation of the situation in the sunshine state.
The event is one of the new-style two-day race meetings, with three short sprint races and no refuelling to cut team numbers, which emerged from the scheduling situation and pressure on teams last year.
“In light of the current COVID-19 situation in Brisbane, Supercars has made the precautionary decision to delay the upcoming Beaurepairs Tasmania SuperSprint by one week,” said series organisers in an official statement.
The COVID-19 clusters in greater Brisbane are a problem for Supercars because many of the staff at its two leading teams, Shell V-Power Racing and Red Bull Ampol Racing, live in the affected area and the race base for Triple Eight – which fields the Bulls – is at Banyo in the inner-north of the Queensland capital.
Some members of the Triple Eight crew left earlier this week to escape the predicted lock-down in greater Brisbane to ensure they could field the car that will be driven by Shane van Gisbergen and Prince Jefri Ibrahim in the GT championship race at the Easter Bathurst race meeting.
While Tasmania is delayed, there are also question marks around the Supercars event at Winton in rural Victoria on the last weekend in May, and there are still doubts that the AGP will happen on its revised date in November.
The problem for Winton is funding, as the event relies on considerable backing from the Victorian state government.
It could also be badly affected by Supercars’ COVID safety plan, which relies on reduced attendances and strict limits on where spectators can go at events.
Although the first two races of the 2021 season went ahead without any problems, the numbers at both Bathurst and Sandown in Victoria were massively down on previous events to ensure they did not break the COVID attendance caps.
Shane Howard, the chief operating officer of Supercars, told carsales the Winton event would definitely go ahead but admitted there is still uncertainty around financial backing.
He said Supercars is continuing negotiations with the Victorian government to provide the tourism support needed for the event.
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