Roland's View: Spicing up Supercars without safety cars

The safety car hasn’t had much of a work out this year. Image: InSyde Media

If you’re managing a front-running Supercars team, or driving a front-running car, safety cars are normally a bloody nuisance. Predictability is your friend, and you want to be able to use your car speed to drive away from the pack.

But, for the viewing (and paying) public, races can get very boring, especially the longer ones, without a measure of the sort of unpredictability that a well-timed safety car can bring.

I did a quick SC comparison of the first 16 championship races of 2014 against the same number for this year. In the case of 2024, that’s post Sydney Motorsport Park, whilst in the case of 2014 it was post Perth.

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A decade ago, 8 of those 16 races featured Safety Car interventions. In 2024 it was 4, or exactly half the number. That, I believe, is one more reason why we’ve seen so much underwhelming racing this season.

I don’t believe in artificial safety car interventions, but the ‘spec’ nature of the cars, plus the formats and the tyres, are all leading to less on-track action; cars driving around in a neat line just doesn’t produce action and the outcome becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The upshot of the lack of safety cars is that there is very little temptation to try something different in regard to strategy; the sort of moves which used to produce unpredictable finishes as a team would opt for a tyre stop under a late safety car, for instance, or try to make the fuel last the distance after a mid-race one.

Sydney did, refreshingly, see some interesting one stop vs two stop fights, but a safety car or two at the right time could have swung things around a lot more. The thing is, the lack of safety cars is leading to less gambling by teams, especially when drivers are mired in the mid pack.

So, what’s the answer? Well, at the risk of repeating myself in some areas, it is possible to spice the racing up without necessarily having safety cars just for the sake of it.

Here’s a plan:

Run the hard tyre as the base tyre at all events, and far fewer of them. In the pit stop, but non-enduro races only, have one set of soft tyres available for each race which must be used for at least one lap. Hard tyres equals less grip, longer braking distances and greater differences in driver capability in bringing them up to working temperature. Less grip = less predictability as well as less marbles off line, tempting drivers into making moves that they otherwise wouldn’t countenance. Ban the use of the soft tyre set in practice and qualifying. That’ll help the unpredictability as teams won’t be easily able to verify the level of degradation.

Fit a limited slip differential, as per NASCAR, to the car. It’ll increase the opportunities to pass by opening up lines, and get rid of the importance of tuning droop restriction into the right place in a tiny window. That superb dice between Shane van Gisbergen and Kyle Larson in Stage 1 of the Chicago Xfinity race wouldn’t have been possible with a spool differential, like Supercars run.

In the refuelling races, get rid of the minimum drop and remove all other relevant current rules. Instead, insert one that governs the minimum time it takes to fill a car from empty to full (as per Asian/European Le Mans rules). That stops hot rodding of rigs but rewards drivers who save fuel if they chose to by reducing their fill times. At the same time, reduce the size of the tanks so that multiple stops are always required. With faster fill times looking likely for this season’s enduro races, quick fuel dumps could be back on the cards in 2025.

Increase strategy options by increasing the speed limit in pit lane to 60 km/h from the current 40. That would reduce transit times thereby reducing the ‘cost’ of an extra stop. But it can’t be done in isolation as it would expose personnel to too much risk. So, adopt a NASCAR/GT hybrid style combination of pit stop methodology whereby the crew stay behind the line until the car is one box away. Then allow only the nearside crew to come out. Only when the car is stationary can crew move to the outside. Allow the car to leave without all crew being back behind the line. I reckon there’s a viable set of rules in this idea somewhere that could be thrashed out to help create some of that badly needed unpredictability.

Look at banning the changing of tyres at the same time as refuelling (as per some GT categories) so as to encourage multi-stinting the tyres. There’s then the option of going for track position on older tyres or fitting newer tyres but taking a time loss.

Safety car restarts. Go to double file restarts at all permanent circuits, but not at temporary ones, including Bathurst. We learned our lesson with trying them at street circuits many years ago. However, they could be a feature of permanent circuits.

Finally, as I’ve floated before, 15 minutes total of practice for the non-endurance races will assist in so many ways, including unpredictability. Racing, yes, practice, no.

I proposed running the hard tyre everywhere in the first point above. Maybe this ‘new’ tyre that has been tested recently will do the job instead. We can have an open mind about that for the moment.

However, only when a tyre that uses current GT technology is adopted will the issues of longevity and raceability likely be properly addressed. Dunlop/Goodyear have such tyre expertise available to them (as per the World Endurance Championship, for instance) but if they don’t want to step up then both Pirelli and Michelin are waiting in the wings with proven products.

Whatever happens, there’s a need to shake things up for 2025. That, I believe, is probably accepted by all. But history tells me that the teams will try their best to avoid change.