Longer Supercars races at AGP

There has been a boost to the length of the Supercars races which will be held at the Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix.

The world championship’s annual stop at Albert Park will this year feature not only the Beaurepaires Melbourne SuperSprint but also, for the first time ever, the FIA Formula 2 and FIA Formula 3 competitions.

The demand for track time means that the four Supercars races had to be trimmed to accommodate the F1 feeder championships, which have their own international television requirements, as first reported by Speedcafe.com.

However, some of those losses have now been pared back, with one of the four races in fact being longer than the quartet of 20-lap, 100km affairs which were held in 2022, according to a new schedule obtained by Speedcafe.com.

Supercars had initially announced that this year’s four races at the 5.278km Albert Park circuit would be 100km, 80km, 70km, and 70km in length, respectively.

The latest event schedule now shows that Race 3 of the season (the first of the weekend) has been scheduled for 22 laps, Race 4 for 17 laps, and Races 5 and 6 for 14 laps each.

That compares to 19, 15, 13, and 13 laps respectively, per the Supplementary Regulations already published by the championship.

It means that Race 3 of the season is now 116km long rather than 100km, Race 4 is 90km, and Races 5 and 6 are each 74km long (noting that, per the previous schedule, they would have been 69km long rather than the official 70km).

Thursday of the event is therefore slightly busier again, with the two half-hour practice sessions and a pair of qualifying sessions, one for Race 3 and one for Race 4, followed later in the day by Race 3 itself.

Furthermore, Race 3 has been pushed later into the afternoon, swapping places with Race 1 of Carrera Cup which had previously closed out the Thursday programme.

Friday is virtually unchanged, but it will be an earlier start for the touring car contingent on Saturday, with the paired Qualifying for Race 5/Qualifying for Race 6 sessions kicking off from 09:05 rather than 09:30 (local time/AEDT).

As before, Sunday’s Race 6 is set to take place between the F3 and F2 feature races on Sunday morning.

As a support category for F1, there are a number of unique elements of the Supercars weekend at Albert Park.

Some of those, however, are self-imposed, such as the use of multiple tyre compounds, which distinguishes the Melbourne SuperSprint from every other event on the calendar

Drivers are obliged to use the hard and super soft in each race, necessitating four-tyre pit stops, with Qualifying for Race 3 to be run on hards and Qualifying for Race 4 on super softs, then the same applying for Qualifying for Races 5 and 6 respectively.

2023 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix track sessions schedule

* Start of formation lap