{"id":678102,"date":"2026-05-18T06:37:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T06:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/678102\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T06:37:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T06:37:18","slug":"why-tassie-race-extension-should-have-supercars-field-worried","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/678102\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Tassie race extension should have Supercars field worried"},"content":{"rendered":"

A CHANGE to the race distance for this Sunday\u2019s race at the Tyrepower Tasmania Super440 at Symmons Plains should, if history is any guide, have one team licking its lips together.<\/p>\n

Last week it was announced that Sunday\u2019s 78-lap race (187.2-kilometres) would be extended to 84 laps (201.6-kilometres).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe change comes after discussions with Supercars and teams around fuel consumption,\u201d it was confirmed on Friday via Supercars\u2019 official website.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiscussions surrounded the ability to complete the original Sunday race distance with just two fuel churns, with the race initially requiring two compulsory pit stops.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupercars had previously reduced the race distance to 78 laps to ensure teams could complete the race with just two churns.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Undercut \u2013 Should rivals be friends?<\/p>\n

The Undercut is back, breaking down the world of Supercars racing.<\/p>\n

The race \u2013 Race 16 of the 2026 season \u2013 will now have three compulsory pit stops to be completed within the 84-lap distance, rather than two.<\/p>\n

One team has proven to be the kings of 84 lap races at Symmons Plains over time: Triple Eight Race Engineering.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Brisbane-based team has won seven of the nine 84 lappers held at the track between 2009 and 2019, including the first (won by Jamie Whincup<\/a>\u2019s TeamVodafone FG Falcon) and most recent won by Shane van Gisbergen\u2019s Red Bull ZB Commodore.<\/p>\n

All 84 lap races have been held on the Sunday of the Tasmanian rounds with four wins to Whincup (2009, 2011, 2012, 2015), two to Craig Lowndes<\/a> (2014, 2018) and one to van Gisbergen (2019).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Will Davison<\/a>\u2019s win for TEKNO Autosports in 2016 means that eight of the nine races have been won by Triple Eight-built cars; his VF Commodore\u2019 chassis was built by the Brisbane-based team.<\/p>\n

The only non-Triple Eight-connected 84 lap race winner in Tasmania over that period was Mark Winterbottom<\/a>, who took the 2010 Sunday win for Ford Performance Racing.<\/p>\n

Practice for the Tyrepower Tasmania Super440 starts on Friday at Symmons Plains.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jamie Whincup on his way to winning in Tasmania in 2009. His Sunday win was the first in an 84 lapper at Symmons Plains. Photo an1images.com \/ Scott Wensley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A CHANGE to the race distance for this Sunday\u2019s race at the Tyrepower Tasmania Super440 at Symmons Plains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-678102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678102","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=678102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}