MOTORSPORT: Supercars go for sprints

After much debate and argument the Australian Supercars championship has settled on an orthodox sprint race format for its return to action at Sydney Motorsport Park on June 27-28.

Three 130km 33-lap races will be conducted over the weekend with one on Saturday and two on Sunday. There will be one mandatory stop per race to change a minimum two tyres but no refuelling. Saturday will also include a top 15 shootout for pole position.

All up, the 24 V8 Ford Mustangs and Holden Commodore ZBs will put on close to 12 hours practice, qualifying and racing action across the two days in the first event since Supercars was forced to pause its season in March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

But it could have been drastically different.

The most radical vision came from one of the most influential players in the category, factory Holden team owner Roland Dane.

He favoured a compact program with three sprint races on Sunday, no pit stops and a reverse grid race second time out to shake things up.

While Dane no longer holds any formal positions within the Supercars structure he still exerts great influence.

His business, Triple Eight Race Engineering, supplies a number of teams with complete Commodores. It also has a monopoly on ZB replacement body parts.

Dane is understood to have drawn support predominantly from among his customer base for his vision.

Much of the rest of the grid could be characterised as opposed or at least unswayed by his proposed format.

He talked in-depth about his views on Russell Ingall and Paul Morris’ popular Enforcer &The Dude web program recently, but admitted they were unlikely to gain majority support from Supercars team owners.

“I think there are too many other vested interests trying to keep the status quo,” said Dane.

There’s little doubt those ‘vested interests’ also look at any Dane proposal with some caution. Many of them struggle to believe his motives are bereft of self-interest.

There were also practical issues. Live telecaster Fox Sports wanted racing over two days, the potential damage bill of reverse grid racing was a turn-off for financially-pressed team owners and straight Supercars sprint races without pit stops have traditionally lacked action.

At the core of the format debate was a need to go racing with less people at less cost in a way that complied with COVID-19 restrictions. That meant the 2x200km races with tyre and fuelling stops originally planned for sprint meetings in 2020 was a no-go.

At SMP two-car teams are restricted to 11 personnel plus drivers, only minimum racing and category officials will be in attendance, there will be no other racing categories on the program and no spectators.

In an attempt to halt ‘remote’ engineering, teams will be restricted on what data they can receive live during each race.

Teams will fly in to Sydney on Friday and out on Sunday night by charter, stay at a hotel next to the racetrack and have only restricted time at the racetrack.

That template is likely to evolve through the year as restrictions evolve. Ford instance, Supercars is hopeful of having spectators camping at the next event at Winton in country Victoria on July 18-19.

Should a driver or team be forced to withdraw from any event, Supercars has confirmed the final championship points for both the driver and team championships’ will be calculated by dropping the worst event points from all drivers’ final point score.

It has also been confirmed that teams can only conduct one more test day in 2020 which must be undertaken between August 30 and October 5. The rookie test days have been cancelled but have been replaced by a rookie only session at events.

The current Supercars calendar comprises 11 events out to a Bathurst sprint in February 2021, but is subject to change.

Fox Sports will telecast SMP live, but it is as yet undecided if free to air partner Network 10 will follow suit or show highlights only.

DJR Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin leads the 2020 championship after one completed round in Adelaide by 27 points from Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup.

The seven-time champion is due to make his 500th Supercars career start at SMP.