The 2011 V8 Supercars Championship Series calendar will be announced this week – and there will be some major changes to what was originally envisaged.
After another delay that saw its proposed revealing at the Gold Coast event put back, V8 Supercars Chairman Tony Cochrane confirmed that the calendar would be locked in this week.
There has been much speculation about the calendar, with Bahrain expected to be omitted, possibly replaced by Losail, Qatar.
At the Armor All Gold Coast 600 on the weekend, V8 Supercars advertised the Abu Dhabi (Yas Marina Circuit) round on a pedestrian bridge (see picture).
Speedcafe.com.au understands that there is no problem with the Abu Dhabi round going ahead, however, the circuit does not want to pay the freight for the one round, instead, wishing to share the cost.
The Losail track at Qatar is typically used as a bike track, hosting the opening round of MotoGP for the past four years under lights.
It is also expected that Singapore will now miss its round. While the track was never officially announced as a venue that the series would compete at, V8 Supercars Australia has invested a lot of its energy into trying to get the series to race at the Formula One event.
It appears, though, that Singapore will not be on the schedule, to be replaced by Queensland Raceway in August.
Cochrane admitted to an assembled group of media on the grid for Sunday’s race that there were some problems finalising the calendar.
“We’ve got a few issues actually. It’s fairly tricky at the moment, so we’re just going to hang off for a couple more days and get it right,” he said.
“One of the problems with the calendar is that when we announce it, a lot of our fans will book, and we don’t want to put anyone into difficulties with plane booking and accomodation.
“We want to get it right, get it all done and we’ll roll it out sometime next week.”
V8 Supercars Australia will hold its Teams Forum and Annual General Meeting today.
