Possible showers for Supercars season-opener

Possible showers have been forecast for next weekend’s Supercars Championship season-opener, the Repco Mount Panorama 500.

The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting a reasonably high chance of rain for all three days of track activity, including as much as 50 percent on the Friday.

Up to 6mm is expected that day in Bathurst, up to 4mm on Saturday, and as potentially a millimetre next Sunday.

Rain had a major impact on proceedings when Supercars was last in action, which also happened to be at Mount Panorama in October for the Bathurst 1000.

Race start was brought forward by half an hour to 11:00 local time, giving more room to complete the race before darkness fell amid a higher chance of Safety Cars and slower lap speed.

Falls during the race itself were ultimately limited, with victory achieved in not much longer than six hours, but a wet period still arguably had a significant impact on how the contest played out.

It was on Lap 54 that Shane van Gisbergen passed Scott McLaughlin for second position at Forrest’s Elbow, then Lap 56 when the Triple Eight Race Engineering driver took the lead from Will Davison at Hell Corner.

From that point, van Gisbergen and co-driver Garth Tander kept Car #97 in front for all of the nearly 106 laps which remained except for one, during a pit stop cycle.

The Repco Supercars Championship field will be on-track next Friday for two 40-minute practice sessions, with a qualifying session, Top 10 Shootout, and 40-lap/250km race to follow on each of the Saturday and Sunday.

CLICK HERE for event schedule

Weather forecast: Mount Panorama 500

Source: Bureau of Meteorology, as at Sunday 21/2 at 16:30 AEDT