Mostert calls for an end to sprint races, drivers support longer Supercars races

After a game of strategy in Sydney, Supercars drivers have thrown their support behind longer races.

The pair of 200km races at the Sydney SuperNight forced teams and drivers to decide between one or two stops to take a minimum 80L fuel drop, with both options proving successful despite Chaz Mostert winning both with the latter.

On each occasion a one-stopping rival gained a vast amount of track position and took the lead once the cycles were completed, but the Walkinshaw Andretti United driver was able to use fresh tyres to slash the 10-plus second lead and snatch the win in the final laps.

With drivers using the options to gain positions up and down the order, many thoroughly enjoyed the Grand Prix style strategy races more than the sprint rounds.

This year’s new sprint format of 2x hour long races has not been well received being too long to be a flat out sprint like those seen at Albert Park today or at every round in the 1990s, but too short for significant strategy elements to come into play and somewhat in no man’s land.

Mostert said the extra intrigue that strategy brings to longer Supercars races should be seen at all solo rounds.

“Personally I don’t think we should do sprint races anymore,” Mostert said.

“Tonight (Saturday night) showed another great spectacle with different strategies.

“The teams really enjoy it, especially the engineers who are world class and finally when you have these types of races you create strategy around it.

“Every race we go to should be a fuel race on a Saturday and Sunday.

“The different tracks we go to will create different strategies depending on what the deg is and how long the pit lane is and all that kind of stuff. 

“It gave Matt (Payne) the ability to come back from 10th.

“If you go to a sprint race everyone knows you need to pit once and generally you finish where you start.

“My heyday of Supercars is the 2012 era and I was working on the workshop floor of FPR and you had this great rivalry between T8 and FPR and everything was a two-stop mini endurance race.”

Mostert also wants the Enduro Cup that was in place from 2013-2019 should be back.

“I say the same for enduros, we need to have a three-round endurance series again. Bring Gold Coast back, it is who we are,” he said.

“It is a cool spectacle.”

Tickford’s Thomas Randle was on the same page.

“I couldn’t agree more. I like that if you look at Townsville and you had Matt on a three stopper and we were two stopping and here it is a question of is the one or two stop faster? You are still trying to decide before the race,” he said.

“Rather than in sprints it is just do you take rears, rights or lefts and just one stop.

“It gets your brain thinking and the same for us driving the car, if you are on a two stop you have to drive it to a two stop or vice versa.

“It just adds another element and the more times we are in the pits there is more action, adding more of the human element into it which can only be a good thing.”

Saturday runner-up Payne utilised the one-stop option to jump from 10th to second and enjoys the longer and shorter races, but felt the current one-hour sprint format is stuck in between.

“I actually like the longer races,” the young Kiwi said.

“You settle into your rhythm really early on and you have a pretty good idea what the team is feeling strategy wise.

“We were one or two cars going a one stopper and you know there is going to be a battle at the end which I think is really exciting for all the fans.

“I really enjoy the longer races but I like all the races.

“The sprint races at AGP were a lot of fun with so much battling going on and that style of racing is really good.

“It is just the middle ground races like Darwin and things like that where they are not long enough to have a different strategy.”

The next round in Tasmania will feature the two one hour races.

Image: Peter Norton EPIC Sports Photography

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