Support for longer Supercars races

Chaz Mostert and Cam Waters each prevailed in one of the weekend’s two 55-lap, 133km encounters around Wanneroo Raceway, with the race winning time being a touch over 52:11s on both occasions (although Mostert’s Race 10 time was 52:09.0652s before the application of the time penalty which cost him a sweep of the event).

That was a brand-new SuperSprint format, comprised now of two races of approximately one hour long rather than a trio of 100km sprints, and hence representing a net reduction of 34km of racing compared to the Perth stop in 2023.

In a further change, some of the 90 minutes of Friday practice which was originally on the cards was redistributed to Saturday and Sunday morning.

Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Will Brown described Sunday morning practice as a “weird” proposition and surmised that fans would prefer to see more racing.

Waters and Mostert had differing opinions on the merits of those practice sessions, but both called for longer races.

“I really liked it,” said Tickford Racing’s Waters of the Sunday morning hit-out.

“It was cool to kind of come to the track and do some live pit stops for all the crew and just kind of spice it up, change it a little bit.

“I just would probably like the races to be a little bit longer; that’s all.”

The races at Wanneroo featured one compulsory pit stop for at least two tyres, whereas two which would necessarily feature some refuelling were mandated for the 200km encounters which were held in the previous event of the season at Taupo.

While there was some strategic variation in the West in terms of two- versus four-tyre pit stops, Mostert would like to see a wider rollout of multi-stop refuelling races which were once common.

“Practice stuff, not really, but like Cam echoed, I’d love to get back to longer races,” said the Mobil 1 Optus Mustang pilot.

“Some of the tyre races we had around here back in [what is], I still think, the golden era of Supercars – 2012, 2011 – those really long races, double-stop fuel races – the teams don’t want to hear that because it costs more money to keep putting kays on cars but I think to bring strategy into it, it really puts emphasis on the engineering side of things.

“It’s really cool, you can do completely different things.

“Even this weekend, there was either two or four tyres, when you overcut or slightly undercut, [but] there wasn’t really too much other crazy strategy stuff.

“But, back then, there were heaps of different things and the best call I ever heard around here was ‘Have them or have them off,’ and I wish we could have some more calls like that.”

Supercars was to have moved in 2020 to races of at least 200km in distance everywhere except at the Australian Grand Prix, until COVID intervened.

Formats have been a talking point for much of this year, with a reduced fuel drop for the 250km races at Bathurst, and no fuel drop but two CPSs for the 200km races at Taupo.

In between, Albert Park saw four out-and-out sprints without any CPSs at all, leading some drivers to suggest that was a factor in the action which was produced at Albert Park.

The next event of the season at Hidden Valley is similar to that of Wanneroo in so much that it features an approximately hour long race on each of Saturday and Sunday.

There will be Saturday morning practice, but none on Sunday morning, given qualifying was shifted to Friday and hence part of that 90-minute practice session also redistributed in order to continue to create the means of awarding a Darwin Triple Crown.