Why Supercars has dropped timed races

The Wanneroo, Hidden Valley, and Symmons Plains events were to have been run as a pair of 60-minute, fully time-certain races.

Instead, though, Schedule A2 of the Operations Manual shows races of duration 133km each for Wanneroo (Races 9 and 10), 137km each for Hidden Valley (Races 11 and 12), and 132km each for Symmons Plains (Races 17 and 18).

That would equate to prescribed lap counts of 55 for Wanneroo (2.42km) and Symmons Plains (2.4km), and 47 or 48 for Hidden Valley (2.87km).

With pit stops and formation laps accounted for, it means each of those races should roughly fill a 60-minute block, as was the original intent, while providing more certainty for teams.

Significantly, it means that, in the case of a race ending early due to a red flag, the threshold for whether or not championship points will be awarded (ie that more than 50 percent of race distance has been completed by the leader) is clear.

It is understood that the decision to revert from fully time-certain races was made after the Commission obtained more data thanks to the action which took place during 2023, the first season of the Gen3 era.

As before, in SuperSprint races, each entry must complete one compulsory pit stop to change a minimum of two tyres.

The exception is the next event of the season, at Albert Park.

There, the Repco Supercars Championship field will contest the Melbourne SuperSprint across four races with no CPSs at all, given teams will have secondary access to the second pit lane.

That event, which forms part of the Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix, takes place from March 21-24.