*****Virgin Australia Supercars Championship 2018*****

Soldato
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Thought it was about time this super* series had it's own thread!

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Commonly referred to as the 'Supercars Championship' or 'V8 Supercars' this thrilling series runs from March to November throughout Australia with a trip to New Zealand for some light international flavour.

The vehicles used in the series are loosely based on road going four door saloons. Initially the series was only for Ford Falcons and Holden Commodore's but new regulations introduced in the 2013 season opened it up to more manufacturers. This year in addition to Ford's and Holden's there are some Nissan Altima's racing as well.

The cars are front engine, rear wheel drive with an output of 620-650bhp currently using a 5.0 litre V8 although new regulations have also opened up the engine options although no teams have committed to this yet. This is going to be a V6 with a twin turbo setup which has been trialled at Bathurst last year and is under development by Triple Eight Race Engineering.

Enough boring stuff though!

Calendar:

Round Event Circuit Location Dates
1
Adelaide 500 Adelaide Street Circuit Adelaide, South Australia 3–4 March
2 Melbourne 400 Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit Melbourne, Victoria 23–25 March
3 Tasmania SuperSprint Symmons Plains Raceway Launceston, Tasmania 7–8 April
4 Phillip Island 500 Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit Phillip Island, Victoria 21–22 April
5 Perth SuperSprint Barbagallo Raceway Pinjar, Western Australia 5–6 May
6 Winton SuperSprint Winton Motor Raceway Benalla, Victoria 19–20 May
7 Darwin Triple Crown Hidden Valley Raceway Darwin, Northern Territory 16–17 June
8 Townsville 400 Townsville Street Circuit Townsville, Queensland 7–8 July
9 Ipswich SuperSprint Queensland Raceway Ipswich, Queensland 21–22 July
10 Sydney SuperNight 300 Sydney Motorsport Park Eastern Creek, New South Wales 4 August
11 The Bend SuperSprint The Bend Motorsport Park Tailem Bend, South Australia 25–26 August
12 Sandown 500 Sandown Raceway Springvale, Victoria 16 September
13 Bathurst 1000 Mount Panorama Circuit Bathurst, New South Wales 7 October
14 Gold Coast 600 Surfers Paradise Street Circuit Surfers Paradise, Queensland 20–21 October
15 Auckland SuperSprint Pukekohe Park Raceway Pukekohe, Auckland Region 3–4 November
16 Newcastle 500 Newcastle Street Circuit Newcastle, New South Wales 24–25 November

The big changes for this year are:

  • Melbourne is now a championship round featuring 4 races in support of the F1 circus
  • The race at Sydney Motorsport Park becomes a single night race of 300km
  • Auckland Supersprint gets a Top 10 Shootout for the Sunday race
  • NEW EVENT: The Bend Supersprint takes place on a brand new circuit!

How to watch:

Internationally the series can be live streamed and races played on demand via Supercars Superview which goes for a fairly reasonable $60 AUD for the season.

It can also be caught on Motorsport.tv on the following channels:
  • Freesat - 253
  • Sky 447
  • Virgin Media 545
The races are aired live with highlights and replays making Superview the better option in my opinion.

That'll do for now although I'll probably add more info here as I have time. Hopefully this gets enough chatter to be worth doing on a yearly basis! For now I'm going to suggest to keeping all the races in this thread.

Rounds 1 & 2 are in the bag with some great action at Adelaide - lets see what's in store for the rest of the year!
 
I've actually no idea about this weekend. Superview says the live stream starts in blah blah blah but like you say the rights are tied up. I do wonder if it'll be available on demand afterwards? The wording is a bit vague at best!

subscribe to SuperView and live stream every Virgin Australia Supercars Championship qualifying and race session in 2018 (excluding the sessions at the 2018 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix), live and uninterrupted on your mobile, tablet or desktop.

Seems to suggest they simply can't stream it live. We'll know by the morning as the qualifying will have taken place by then! Fingers crossed.

I've only really caught Bathurst most years and last year was my first time watching the whole thing. That last race at Newcastle was a nail biter and full of drama to end the year!
 
I think it must be. In that case we can have a decent watch + discussion. I'm sure we all know the track already but here it is for those who have just gained consciousness since 1996!

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I'm off to watch Qualifying for races 3 & 4 now :)
 
D'oh! That sounds like a nightmare with the email lark! Only thing I've seen worse is the WWE Network app which actually sends a push notification for match winners/championship changes! You can turn them off but the app landing page is the news feed which I bet you guess the content on! :rolleyes:

As for races 4, 5 & 6?! Holy hell I can't wait to see how this season unfolds! Chaos in the rain, dry to rain with Scott Pye holding on in the wet on slicks! Madman. Plus yet another different winner in race 6 in Reynolds! Hopefully Erebus have found their groove :)
 
Welcome aboard! :)

I saw he was doing some testing and I just had a quick look and the BTCC season ends Sept 30th a whole week before Bathurst. Given enough practice through the summer he could be a wildcard entry? Could be fun! :)
 
Enduros start on the 16th Sept at Sandown so it'll be before the BTCC season ends. Do they allow wildcard entries for Bathurst alone? I'm not sure if anyone can or would want to team up with him for only one race.

I'm honestly not quite sure how the wildcard entries work - I'll need to look into it more :)

I'm sure I've seen a Bathurst race with a team running 3 drivers though. I'll do some digging.
 
Round 3: Symmons Plains Raceway (Races 7 & 8)

After some exciting and slippery action at Melbourne (giving points for the first time as well) we head back to the more normal tracks that we see the Supercars on - tight, twisty and narrow!

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Length: 1.50 miles
Direction: Anti-Clockwise
Lap Record: Craig Lowndes - 51.4370s (2017)
Event Format: Supersprint

Race 1: 50 laps, 120km
Race 2: 84 laps, 200km

This weekend also see's a new qualifying format due to the short track getting congested. You can take a quick read up of it >>here<<

Pretty much F1 style elimination qualifying with the top 10 times from the practice sessions getting a bye to qualifying round 2! :)

Hopefully get a better track map up once the stream is on tomorrow! :)
 
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Indeed it is! The render looks badass! :D

Anyhoo - Phillip Island this weekend and as I write this Race 9 of the championship is in the bag! Here's a track map for you:

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Sector breakdowns but no track data yet as they didn't do any on the qualifying broadcast I'm watching now :)
 
Was too lazy to grab the track map with lap details on it for now but both races watched and very enjoyable.

Some excellent passing by Scotty and a few odd issue for 888 being quick one day but not the next!
 
It seemed he got a bit excited at the first pit stop (around lap 17) and turned off his pitlane speed limiter at the wrong cone! Realised his mistake and turned it back on but rules are rules and he got busted for it.

Still mixes things up a bit and shuts up the Ford fanboys who say 888 never get penalties!
 
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