QUEENSLAND TEAMS TURN TO QUARANTINE AFTER BATHURST 1000

It is expected that after the 2021 Supercars Championship concludes at Bathurst, Queensland based teams will be required to undertake two weeks of quarantine.

By December 5 when the Bathurst 1000 is run, Victoria will have reached a vaccine rate sufficient enough for the Victorian government to loosen restrictions and allow teams down south to return without fuss.

However, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has been a lot more strict with border closures, lockdowns and quarantine periods throughout the pandemic and has openly said that the Sunshine State will not open at the same COVID-19 rate as New South Wales and Victoria.

This means that Queensland based teams, Triple Eight Race Engineering, Dick Johnson Racing and Matt Stone Racing will be forced to undertake quarantine.

It is expected that these teams will have to do two weeks quarantine upon returning, however with Bathurst on December 5, the fortnight will have been surpassed by Christmas.

“We anticipate the Victorian teams won’t have any issues getting back into Victoria,” Seamer confirmed in a media call which included AUTO ACTION.

“Whilst everybody acknowledges that the world’s going to be very different come December, we’re still going to work through the return to Queensland protocols with Queensland Health and that’s what we’re doing right now.

“It’s just about getting everybody home after Bathurst and working with the relevant authorities around return home protocols.

“These are somewhat easier in that our focus is just making sure that everybody’s back in time with their families prior to Christmas, rather than having to turn around and put another race meeting off.”

Seamer explained that one of the reasons that a quadruple header at Sydney Motorsport Park became viable was that no teams had to quarantine going into the state, only upon leaving.

This meant that teams would only have to quarantine for a maximum of two weeks, and is one of the reasons the proposed Queensland Raceway event fell over.

“To be honest with you, the benefit from an operational point of view, the benefit of having this structure and everybody being in New South Wales in the lead up to Bathurst means that it simplifies a lot of the work that we need to do from a health point of view,” he said.

“That means getting people home after Bathurst and making sure that their home by Christmas and it’s not just the teams, there is a range of other people that make the sport happen and make Bathurst happen and we need to get them home quickly as well.

“We had to abort the plans for Queensland and just focus on what we knew was going to be achievable, that would give us maximum certainty, but also maximum opportunity to reconnect with fans.

“Whilst it might seem a little bit counter-intuitive, based on how the world is right now, by the time you fast forward to the end of October and then into November in New South Wales, it’s going to be a very different world that we are living.

“Not not an easy decision to be having to do four rounds in the same facility.

“Whilst it would be great to be racing in three different states in the lead up to Bathurst, unfortunately, that requires multiple different variations of plans that need to be approved by various state health departments and they can take a lot of time.”

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