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Supercars has confirmed a tweak to the championship points allocation for this weekend’s Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight event.
While Sydney Motorsport Park will see the only night race of the season, the spectacle is not the only aspect which marks it out as unique in the context of the 2023 Repco Supercars Championship.
The sporting regulations are also completely different in so much that it is the only time this year that teams will have a refuelling race and a non-refuelling race in the same weekend.
Nevertheless, the Sydney weekend is technically classified as a ‘Sprint Event’ per Supercars’ Operations Manual, and hence fastest lap bonus points are on offer.
Supercars has now confirmed, via further supplementary regulations, that five championship points will be on offer in each race for the driver who sets the fastest lap around the 3.91km circuit.
Ordinarily it is indeed five points for the fastest lap in a sprint race, although that is because the bonus figure is typically specified as five percent of the race-winning haul, which is 100 points each race at most sprint events.
At ‘Eastern Creek’, both races will pay 150 points to the winner, given the standard 300-point total is spread over two races rather than three.
The confirmation of fastest lap points for Saturday night’s 200km race adds somewhat to the strategic dilemma for a contest with only one compulsory pit stop.
That the fuel drop is 80 litres, into a 133-litre, Gen3-spec fuel cell, means a one-stop strategy is entirely within the realms of possibility.
However, the high-degradation nature of Sydney Motorsport Park combined with the soft tyre allocation for the event means a two-stopper may well be the fastest way to reach the chequered flag.
Still, with five bonus points on offer, that is likely to also come into strategic consideration.
Teams will need to factor in the fact, though, that drivers are only eligible for fastest lap points if they finish in the top 15, meaning there is no point in taking a ‘free’ pit stop late in the piece if one is circulating near the back of the field anyway.
Sunday’s affair, at 36 laps/140km, is a little more straightforward, with the CPS requirement being just two tyres.
After the post-practice ‘handback’, each driver will have six sets of soft Dunlop rubber to get through the weekend.
Support categories are on-track from Friday, with Practice 1 for the Supercars Championship field starting on Saturday at 12:15 local time/AEST.
