The Australian Grand Prix’s organisers are working to keep a round of the Supercars Championship on its support programme for its November event.
This year’s Albert Park race was scheduled to open the 2021 Formula 1 season on its traditional March date.
However, the round has since been postponed until November 21 with teams and F1 staff reluctant to spend two weeks in managed isolation ahead of the race weekend.
The Grand Prix’s new date is two weeks after the New Zealand Supercars round and another fortnight before the Gold Coast season finale.
It could mean that Supercars could still land a spot on the Australian GP support card. But that hinges primarily on whether teams can return to Melbourne from New Zealand without any coronavirus-induced travel hindrances.
Australian Grand Prix Corporation chief executive Andrew Westacott said he is looking to have all support categories on the newly rescheduled race weekend.
“From a support category point of view, we’re going to work with every one of the support categories nationally to make sure that we can be having them as part of our support program,” Westacott said.
“That’s going to have some challenges, particularly with the NZ round of Supercars a couple of weeks beforehand, but we do want to make sure that we have the best program.
“We’ve advised and had discussions with Supercars about the change. We weren’t able to do that until we had Formula 1 finalisation. Our team is working with Supercars pretty much as we speak.
“There are no solutions to that just yet. It’ll be something we work through. We have a desire to have Supercars on the program. If it worked out possibly that it would be the second last round of their season, then that would be a great outcome.”
Alongside Supercars, S5000, Touring Car Masters, Porsche Carrera Cup and TCR were scheduled to compete over the weekend.
Supercars will still hold a round of its championship over the March weekend, with Sandown the new host venue.