New pole award backer Boost Mobile was under the impression that the pole winner would wear a branded hat while accepting the prize money on TV.
That happened on Saturday when Will Brown took pole, however by Sunday, when Broc Feeney was on pole, Triple Eight had successfully lobbied with Supercars to give the Boost hat a miss.
Instead, Feeney accepted the prize money wearing a Red Bull Ampol Racing hat – to the displeasure of upper management at Boost.
Triple Eight was protected by the Supercars Operations Manual, which hadn’t been updated for the new backer and instead read that pole-winning drivers were required to wear hats branded by previous backer, Armor All.
That has now been changed, though, according to the supplementary regulations for the Melbourne SuperSprint.
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In the Operations Manual, Rule E8.5.2.2 reads, “Drivers are required to wear caps supplied by ARMOR ALL during the official Pole Award presentation at the conclusion of qualifying or the shootout.”
For Albert Park, the updated Rule E8.5.2.2 reads, “Drivers are required to wear caps supplied by the sponsor at the direction of Supercars during the official Pole Award presentation at the conclusion of qualifying or the shootout.”
The same change has been made to E8.5.2.1 which pertains to the official post-race podium presentation.
In that case, Dunlop has been removed and replaced with the identical revised wording to E8.5.2.2.
Given it appears in the supp regs, the change only applies to Albert Park for now, although it is likely to be repeated for future events until the Operations Manual is updated.
Post qualifying and race presentations are always somewhat different at Albert Park compared to other Supercars events due to certain filming and sponsor restrictions put in place by F1.
Last year the pole winners received their prize money inside the garages, however Supercars won’t be using those same garages this year, leaving it unknown how the post-session presentations will play out.
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