{"id":759140,"date":"2026-06-25T10:23:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T10:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/759140\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T10:23:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T10:23:17","slug":"supercars-news-why-supercars-must-revisit-overtime-finish-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/759140\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars news: Why Supercars must revisit overtime finish debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Why
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAnton De Pasquale leads the field under Safety Car on Sunday. Image: Supplied <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\"\"\/
<\/a><\/p>\n

The weekend featured just two Safety Car periods, one called with three laps to go on Friday and one with three to go on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The offending Friday incident was already cleared by the time the Safety Car entered the circuit, allowing a one-lap shootout under green to the finish.<\/p>\n

Now, compare and contrast the excitement of Cam Waters fending off Kai Allen for the win on Friday with what happened on Sunday.<\/p>\n

With Chaz Mostert\u2019s stranded Supra unable to be retrieved quickly, the field dribbled around for the last two laps under Safety Car, Anton De Pasquale\u2019s win guaranteed.<\/p>\n

Adding insult to injury, Supercars rules require the Safety Car to pit on the last lap in this scenario, as if to tease the very solution that could be implemented.<\/p>\n

Adopting NASCAR\u2019s model of adding laps to ensure a proper race conclusion was floated last year following another yellow flag finish at Queensland Raceway.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Then Supercars CEO James Warburton, ever-concisions of the spectacle and fan experience, was all for it. But the teams shot it down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was discussed at the Commission last year and there was mixed support for it,\u201d Supercars motorsport boss Tim Edwards told Speedcafe on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people were absolutely opposed to it. Others were for it, but it didn\u2019t have as much support as you might think.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s certainly a solid argument for it, but there are some solid arguments as to why not to do it as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there are a bunch of cars in the pit lane that finished on fumes [on Sunday]. All of a sudden, they wouldn\u2019t have finished the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

But surely the answer is that teams would simply have to take the possibility of an overtime finish into account, as they do in NASCAR?<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe, but they\u2019re all racers in this pit lane,\u201d said Edwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you take the chance that the race is going to be extended by X number of laps?<\/p>\n

\u201cWeight is lap time and I think you\u2019d find a lot would take the punt that there wasn\u2019t going to be a Safety Car in the last two laps.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tricky one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the issue appears to be a case of listening to the teams over the fans.<\/p>\n

A Speedcafe Poll last year after Ipswich<\/a> yielded a 70 percent vote in favour of introducing overtime finishes.<\/p>\n

NASCAR\u2019s rules require two laps to be added if the scheduled distance is set to be reached under yellow flag conditions.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s known as a \u2018green-white-chequer\u2019, for which there are unlimited attempts allowed.<\/p>\n

Supercars could go down that path, or simply add to its existing rule that states: \u201cEach lap completed while the SC is deployed will be counted as a race lap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Add in \u201cexcept in the last two laps of the scheduled distance\u201d and you\u2019re most of the way there.<\/p>\n

Supercars has, after all, done similar before. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the first five Safety Car laps during sprint races weren\u2019t counted to the race total.<\/p>\n

Such a system requires less fuel than it appears, too, given the additional laps are actually the ones completed under yellow, when fuel consumption is lower.<\/p>\n

This is of course null and void in the case that a race goes time-certain. But even in that rare scenario, the races are usually finishing under green anyway.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Safety Car finishes are also rare. But that doesn\u2019t mean Supercars should just shrug its shoulders when they do occur and continue to deprive fans of thrilling finishes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anton De Pasquale leads the field under Safety Car on Sunday. Image: Supplied The weekend featured just two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,12357,85],"class_list":["post-759140","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-slot1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759140","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=759140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}