FOR all the intentions there seem to be to grow the Supercars calendar for 2026, the odd suggestion that it could actually shrink continues to linger.

This season, Supercars has 13 rounds – i.e. one above the minimum.

Ever since the championship committed to adding Ruapuna to form a historic New Zealand doubleheader next April, the general idea has been for that to not come at the expense of an existing event.

Fast forward to a meeting between Supercars CEO James Warburton and all team owners at the start of this month, and there remained good faith that virtually everyone was working towards a 14-round 2026 schedule.

The hold-up has been financial negotiations regarding payments per Teams Racing Charter for each event above the mandated dozen.

With an agreement yet to be reached, there is uncertainty as to whether it will end up at 14, 13 or even 12. Queensland Raceway and Sandown are considered most at risk if push came to shove.

As Brad Jones hinted back in July at Townsville, the latter would be far from ideal.

“I think 14 is the right number for us to do… considering that we have locked two races into New Zealand, it’s important that we are around there, otherwise we’re going to have 10 races in Australia,” he said at the time.

Supercars has not had fewer than 11 Australian-based rounds in a championship season since 1998 (not counting that year’s Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 which were non-championship events).

It would be a disastrous situation for Supercars in 2026 at a time when it’s welcoming the giant that is Toyota.

But as Macauley Jones explained on the most recent episode of the BJR Run Down podcast, the numbers simply must stack up.

“It needs to be financially viable for the teams to be able to do the amount of races that we want and if we want to go to 13, 14 or whatever that number is, it does need to be viable,” he said.

“Motorsport is not cheap and we do need to pay for it somehow. As much as we’d all like to go racing more and more, there still needs to be ways of funding it.

“It would be nice to just not have to worry about the income come from owning the licences and the Supercars business itself, but at the same time when you’re travelling with 30 crew, accommodation alone can range from $25,000 to $60,000 depending on where we’re racing…

“It’s not just the cars going on track, it’s so much more than that. It’s a really difficult one for everyone to be able to agree on the right stuff.

“But I’m pretty confident they’ll come to the right conclusion and they’ll do what’s right for the business at the end of the day.”

The Undercut – Unpacking The Bend & Bringing on The Mountain

V8 Sleuth’s take on the world of Supercars from The Bend & Bathurst, with thanks to Shell OTR!