Supercars revealed its 2026 calendar in late October with the Adelaide Grand Final scheduled for December 3-6 – a week later than this year.
It was subsequently announced during the 2025 Adelaide event that the race has been brought forward to November 26-29, with a desire to maintain calendar momentum stated.
However, the real reason behind the unusual shift was Adelaide missing out on the COP31 climate summit, which is now due to take place in Antalya, Türkiye next November.
“Ultimately the calendar is subject to working with all of our major promoters,” Supercars CEO James Warburton explained to Speedcafe.
“Certainly, working with the South Australian Motor Sport Board (SAMSB) and the South Australian Government, they were bidding for COP31, the UN conference.
“That involves some 45,000 delegates coming and the city being not only pretty much booked out, but locked down under strict protocols. That forced us into December.
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“We were keen to keep the momentum of the calendar going and get the teams onto their break.
“When we’ve looked at events either running in November or December, the last week of November has always been better for the fans with Christmas approaching.
“We worked with the South Australian Government, who were also keen to bring the economic stimulus into the month of November, where it would have been with COP31 as well.”
Interestingly, Supercars and the SAMSB explored the possibility of moving the Grand Final as early as October – bringing it ahead of the planned conference.
The push to run the Grand Final ahead of COP31 is believed to have been deemed unworkable due to the need to lock down the city in the weeks ahead of the conference.
Running a Supercars event through city streets directly ahead of a climate summit may also have been an awkward look for the government.
“We explored everything. It was almost impossible to move the Gold Coast. People get used to the traditional dates,” said Warburton.
“Potentially we could have run it in very early November if we reconfigured the calendar but ultimately, we decided to go with a December date and it’s worked out well.
“We’re now where we should be.”
The one downside of the return to the November 26-29 is it means again clashing with Thanksgiving, which makes attracting NASCAR stars significantly harder.
Team Penske Cup Series driver Austin Cindric competed in this year’s Grand Final with Tickford Racing, while Xfinity Series champion Jesse Love drove in Super2.
The SAMSB has expressed a desire to field NASCAR wildcards in conjunction with Ford, GM and Toyota in future years.
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