Cyclone Vaianu is on track to hit New Zealand’s North Island on Sunday, with authorities warning of potentially life-threatening impacts.
Supercars held a series of meetings with key stakeholders in the last 48 hours and is set to issue an update at 4pm NZST today.
It has elected against making any changes to the Friday schedule, which features just two 25-minute practice sessions.
Two qualifying sessions and two 120km races are scheduled for Saturday, with qualifying and a 200km feature race on the Sunday menu.
Asked by Speedcafe if Supercars should be taking a proactive approach, Grove Racing’s Brenton Grove said: “You’re dammed if you do, damned if you don’t.
“You move it forward and the weather forecast doesn’t turn out like you think, you look pretty silly. If you don’t, you look pretty silly.
Click here to find out how.
“At the end of the day, I think you just take it as it comes.
“Driver skill is very high in this championship now, the new wet tyre is very strong and the teams have a good understanding of the cars in the wet.
“I think we play on and if something comes up, something comes up.
“But we are here, we have fans that bought tickets for Sunday, we can’t change things last minute in the hope the weather forecast does come through.”
Supercars delivers Taupo schedule update amid cyclone threat
Matt Stone indicated a decision about Sunday cannot be made until later in the weekend.
Supercars could still bring the Sunday sessions forward to Sunday morning, if the forecast indicates the storm will hit in the afternoon.
“I don’t think you can make that decision until it’s right in front of you,” he said.
“If the weather forecast comes in on Saturday and it’s going to be heavy Sunday afternoon and bringing the race forward would get us the opportunity to execute it, I think that’s a decision that certainly should be considered.
“But I think to talk about that at this point… we could wake up Sunday morning and it’s already too late.
“I think we’ve got to trust the guys and girls at Supercars and Motorsport Australia to make those decisions as they come through.”
Tickford Racing CEO Simon Brookhouse also indicated a wait-and-see approach is required.
“You can’t control the weather, so we just do everything you can to prepare and if Sunday doesn’t work out, because there’s too much rain or wind or whatnot, we deal with that,” he said.
“Ultimately we just turn up and do what we’re going to do with this weather.
“We had the Grand Prix race cancelled last year. It may well happen again during the season, so we just have to deal with it the best we can.”
Adding to the dilemma is the fact Taupo is the first leg of a historic Supercars double-header in NZ that also includes racing at Ruapuna next weekend.
Teams have limited spares to get through the NZ swing, meaning a heavy crash at Taupo could rule a car out of the second event.
Discussion about this post