Fresh hints at 2024 Supercars calendar

The shape of the 2024 Supercars calendar has become more apparent with the release of that of the SpeedSeries.

Motorsport Australia has, in the past 24 hours, unveiled a draft Shannons SpeedSeries calendar, featuring 10 rounds spread across eight different circuits including one to be confirmed.

The dates for those 10 events are thus pencilled in, with Motorsport Australia not expecting wholesale changes whenever the calendar is firmed up, but specifically identifying Supercars events as one factor to consider.

Logically, though, SpeedSeries organisers have deliberately sought to avoid clashing with the biggest championship in the land, and hence we can glean where and when the Supercars will be racing in 2024.

Formula 1 announced its 2024 calendar in July, including the Australian Grand Prix on the weekend of Sunday, March 24.

Notwithstanding the ongoing presence of Formula 2 and Formula 3 at Albert Park, Supercars is expected to return to the Melbourne venue and, logically, that would be Event 2 of its season.

However, the AGP will fall a week earlier next year than it did this year, which could affect the timing of the Newcastle 500.

Another event on the streets of New South Wales’ second-largest city is not yet locked in but at least the mooted one-year contract is more likely than not.

A date on the weekend of Sunday, March 3 is a not unusual start for a Supercars season and would preserve the three-week gap (Sunday-to-Sunday) from Newcastle to Albert Park this year.

The championship’s northern swing is dictated by not only the climate but also the timing of public holidays and school holidays, which provides more clues.

With the King’s Birthday falling on Monday, June 10 in 2024 in the Northern Territory and other jurisdictions, and the Finke Desert Race now locked in for that weekend again, expect the Hidden Valley Supercars event to follow on the weekend of Sunday, June 16.

The NTI Townsville 500 should take place on the weekend of Sunday, July 7 given that is the end of school holidays in Queensland, and the grounds of the Townsville State High School are used as part of that event.

Note also that date essentially matches when the North Queensland stop on the calendar came this year, from July 7-9, and maintains the same three-week turnaround from Darwin.

Race day at the Bathurst 1000 will move back from October 8 to October 13 given 2024 is a leap year and Labour Day in New South Wales is scheduled for Monday, October 7.

The National Rugby League Grand Final nowadays typically falls on the Sunday evening of the long weekend and, assuming it is not sold elsewhere, will take place in the NSW capital of Sydney.

Wherever it is held, a clash with NRL Grand Final Day would simply not happen, and holding the Great Race a week later has become the norm since it moved back to October.

Thanks to the SpeedSeries, the date of the 2024 Gold Coast 500 can now reliably be predicted.

Expect that to be scheduled for the weekend of Sunday, October 27 given the following two weekends will feature the Australian Racing Group-promoted rounds of the TCR World Tour, at Sydney Motorsport Park (November 1-3) and the Supercheap Auto Bathurst International (November 8-10).

A two-week turnaround from Bathurst to the Gold Coast is shorter than had been planned in 2020 and has been the case since the latter finally returned to the calendar last year, but had been standard until then.

The Adelaide 500 is contractually entitled to host the season finale, meaning the final race of the season will occur on either of November 17 or November 24, and the latter would match this year’s four-week gap from the Gold Coast.

The aforementioned predictions represent seven events out of what is likely to be a total of 13 next year.

The trip to the Singapore Grand Prix is believed to be off for logistical reasons but New Zealand makes a popular return to the tour in the form of Taupo.

No date has yet been announced for the latter but Speedcafe understands that, after the idea of a November event was looked at, Taupo will instead host the championship in early-April.

Fitting Taupo, Symmons Plains, and Wanneroo into the calendar will be a logistical challenge but the optimal solution looks to be April 7, April 21, and May 19, respectively, with a swap of Tasmania and Perth being preferable for climactic reasons.

There is a little more room from July through September for Sydney, The Bend, and the Sandown 500.

With no Singapore, Sandown would remain in mid-September in its traditional place as the lead-in to the Bathurst 1000, suggesting Sydney will again fall in late-July and The Bend in mid-August.

The table below encapsulates all of those considerations to form a calendar which contains no clashes with the SpeedSeries, as Motorsport Australia would have intended.

Coincidentally enough, the 2024 SpeedSeries calendar was unveiled at Sandown, a venue which had originally been double-booked with Supercars for 2023 after an apparent error by the Melbourne Racing Club.

Supercars kept its date of September 15-17 having never actually relinquished it, and hence the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 takes place this coming weekend.

The championship is hopeful of unveiling its 2024 calendar by the Repco Bathurst 1000, which takes place on October 5-8.

Predicted 2024 Supercars calendar