REVISED SUPERCARS CALENDAR REVEALED

A revised Supercars Championship calendar has been announced and sees the notable postponement of the Bathurst 1000 and Sydney SuperNight events.

Supercars CEO Sean Seamer stated that Supercars must complete a minimum of 12 rounds, and with seven in the bag, a total of five remain.

The first thing to note is the absence of the round at Queensland Raceway which was added to the calendar less than a fortnight ago, scheduled for August 21-22.

The event will no longer occur with the track south-west of Brisbane now serving as a substitute round should one of the five scheduled events not go ahead as planned.

Two notable absentees from the calendar are the originally scheduled events in New Zealand and Perth which have both had to be axed for the second straight year.

Of the five upcoming rounds, only the season-ending Gold Coast 500 remains in its original position, while the Bathurst 1000 is pushed back to November along with the Sydney SuperNight event.

With the cancellation of the Queensland Raceway round there is now a lengthy gap until the next Supercars Championship race weekend.

Seamer announced in a media conference attended by Auto Action that the next round will be the postponed event at Winton Motor Raceway in country Victoria and will now occur from October 2-3.

A further three-week gap occurs before the following round on October 23-24.

Although Seamer would not comment on what track this track is, it is strongly understood to be at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in Victoria also.

The first week of November is when the 2021 edition of the Bathurst 1000 will be held, from November 4-7.

This has been pushed back so that Supercars stand the best chance of being able to get a large amount of spectators and fans at the event.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney, the Sydney SuperNight will now not occur until November 19-21.

As originally planned the season-ending Gold Coast 500 will take place from December 3-5.

Seamer explained in the media conference that minimising the COVID risk was a key factor to deciding the order and dates of the revised schedule.

[The two key factors were] “Minimising the risk profile of the remaining events and the calendar so that we can minimise any further changes,” Seamer said.

“Also make sure that the events that we are conducting in the back half of this year are being conducted in the best possible windows for fans, from a weather point of view and from experience point of view.”

This is why it was necessary to push back both events in New South Wales, in the hope that the state will be in a better position to hold a bigger event come November.

“We were really looking to buy as much time as possible given the situation in Sydney from a current COVID point of view, but also look to minimise any requirement to travel into metropolitan areas, whether that be Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne, over the course of the next few months,” he said.

“Should things not improve [in Sydney] we have a playbook for fly-in fly-out of that event, as we did last year.

“Gold Coast remains as late as possible given [that with] street races you really require a crowd and an atmosphere there. Those changes from a risk point of view also benefit the fans.

“We don’t want to have to do doubleheaders and make too many changes [to the calendar] unless we really have to, but we do have contingency plans.

“We have spoken to all of the stakeholders involved in all of these states including state and local government. So, as we sit here today, this is locked in.”

Of the remaining rounds, only the Winton SuperSprint will take place on the new SuperSoft tyre which debuted in Darwin.

The second half of the Super2 Series is made up of visits to Winton, Bathurst and Gold Coast to round out its six-round season.

Revised Supercars Schedule:

Winton SuperSprint: 2-3 October
TBA: 23-24 October
Bathurst 1000: 4-7 November
Sydney SuperNight 19-21 November
Gold Coast 500: 3-5 December

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