As revealed by Speedcafe on Friday, Supercars is this week expected to announce plans to cut its calendar into three parts: Sprint, Enduro and Finals.
Although details are yet to be confirmed, the Finals format will be a simplified version of NASCAR’s Playoffs and include the top 10 drivers in the standings after the Bathurst 1000.
For more details on how the Finals are expected to work, click here for Speedcafe’s previous story.
This week’s Pirtek Poll wants to know what you think of Supercars running a Finals series.
It’s been met with a mixed reaction online to date, which is not unexpected for such a seismic shift in the category’s sporting structure.
Traditionalists are likely to push back against the concept, given that the championship has long recognised the best performer across the entire season.
The champion has been decided based on an accumulation of points – under various scoring systems – since 1969, when the competition was expanded from a single race to a series.
Tradition aside, the concept makes a lot of sense in the same way that popular Australian football codes the AFL and NRL run a finals series after their regular season.
In those competitions, the team that sets the standard during the year does not win the big prize if they do not perform on the final day of the campaign.
Supercars is clearly keen to bring back a true championship decider, as the drivers title has been wrapped up before the final day every year since 2018.
Last year’s battle between Brodie Kostecki and Shane van Gisbergen was touted as a final round showdown, but essentially consisted of a mathematical chance that was swiftly snuffed out.
Introducing a Finals system is a bold play by Supercars as it prepares to enter the final year of its current media rights deal with Fox Sports and Seven.
What do you think? Vote now on this week’s Pirtek Poll.
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