Supercars schedule complicated by Victorian lockdown

Australia's two biggest cities are now in lockdown, Sydney still the worst hit with 97 new positive cases of COVID-19 today.

However Melbourne is also squaring off with the highly-contagious Delta variant, with a handful of cases imported from Sydney sending the Victoria into a snap five-day lockdown as of yesterday.

That could further complicate the Supercars schedule following the recent postponement of the Sydney SuperNight.

Sources have suggested that Plan A was for the twice-postponed Winton event to slot into the 20-22 August date originally reserved for Sydney Motorsport Park.

However that now hinges on whether the Melbourne outbreak can be quickly brought under control, as well as when Queensland – home to three teams – re-opens the border to Victoria that will close tonight.

Queensland Raceway is also rumoured to be an option to host the series in the coming weeks, although that too could be complicated by the Queensland/Victoria border closure.

Should QR come into play it could be that the Melbourne teams stay on the road due to the Queensland/Victoria border closure.

A number of Melbourne-based teams have confirmed to Autosport that the current plan is still to return home on Monday.

Supercars has to complete at least 12 rounds to satisfy its broadcast agreement, which explains the contingency plans for at-risk events.

This weekend's Townsville SuperSprint is seventh event of the season so far.

Autosport understands that a double-header in Perth has also been considered.

As it stands, the Perth SuperNight, Auckland SuperSprint, Bathurst 1000, Sydney SuperNight, Winton SuperSprint and Gold Coast 500 are all either on, or expected to re-join, the remaining part of the schedule.