The start of the 2025 Bathurst 1000. Image: InSyde Media
Speedcafe understands team owners are today being briefed by Supercars on plans for the 2026 schedule.
While the category is still working through final dates and details and is not ready to make the calendar public, the key element is that it contains 14 rounds.
It follows months of uncertainty over whether the current 13 round calendar would expand as hoped or shrink to 12.
That was due to an apparent standoff between Supercars owners RACE and the teams over payments required for extra events above the 12 stipulated in the Teams Racing Charter.
Key meetings between key Supercars players – CEO James Warburton and RACE chairman Barclay Nettlefold – and team owners are understood to have taken place at Bathurst.
The expansion to 14 rounds accommodates a maiden visit to Ruapuna on New Zealand’s South Island.
Queensland Raceway and Sandown will be the beneficiaries of the 14 round schedule, however, as those two events – which do not receive government support – were on the chopping block.