{"id":130467,"date":"2025-09-09T15:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T15:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/130467\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T15:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T15:11:10","slug":"supercars-news-overtime-race-finishes-on-the-agenda-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/130467\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars news: Overtime race finishes ‘on the agenda’ for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Supercars
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNASCAR action at Talladega earlier this year. Image: Supplied<\/p>\n

Speedcafe can reveal the topic was discussed at a Commission meeting last week after the opening race at the recent Ipswich Super440 finished under yellows.<\/p>\n

Officials were unable to clear a stranded car \u2013 the Team 18 Camaro of David Reynolds \u2013 in time for the restart procedure to take place ahead of the final lap.<\/p>\n

Guest analyst Scott Pye flagged on the TV broadcast immediately after the race the prospect of adopting the NASCAR overtime policy, where two laps are added to the race total.<\/p>\n

The issue caught the eye of recently reinstalled Supercars CEO James Warburton, who subsequently consulted team owners and put it on the Commission agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been very clear that we need to be as progressive as we possibly can. The Finals is a great example of that,\u201d Warburton told Speedcafe.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, it all comes back to that notion that [if we had] an extra 10 seconds, we would have restarted the race at QR rather than finish under Safety Car.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue is understood to have effectively been put on the back burner for now given more pressing matters, including immediate changes to the Safety Car rules.<\/a><\/p>\n

Supercars to trial Slow Zones at The Bend<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The overtime conversation is expected to be revisited following the 2025 season, with Supercars to undertake more research into the topic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably too soon,\u201d Warburton admitted of introducing overtime. \u201cBut it\u2019s on the agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although attention-grabbing in the aftermath of Ipswich, Safety Car finishes are relatively rare in the Supercars Championship.<\/p>\n

There are complications around the time certain nature of races due to broadcast restrictions, while fuel capacity would also have to be considered if such a policy is implemented.<\/p>\n

Warburton said there are several options for how to ensure green flag finishes outside of adding laps.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether the cars roll into pit lane and stop and the race restarts, or they stop on the back straight or follow the Safety Car until they restart [are options],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinishing as you would expect [under green] is something that would take the sport forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand the safety issues we face, and we can never put officials in danger, but that entertainment focus is something I feel has been missing for a while. It\u2019s time to put it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

POLL: Should Supercars adopt NASCAR-style overtime finishes?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Regardless of whether an overtime system is eventually introduced, Warburton said Supercars needs to be open to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the thing that\u2019s going to bring the sport forward in the biggest way is more excitement, more fans and more eyeballs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at what other sports are doing around the world, we need to of course be obsessed with motorsport, but we actually need to grow the fan base.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to bring back lapsed customers and really dial up who we are and what we\u2019re about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR action at Talladega earlier this year. Image: Supplied Speedcafe can reveal the topic was discussed at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-130467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}