Drivers will feel heat of Bathurst

THIS year’s Bathurst 1000 is predicted to be one of the most brutal in years as drivers prepare to sweat it out in summer heat at the end of a gruelling six-week schedule to close the Supercars season.

Supercars’ pinnacle event will be held two months later than normal at the start of December after Covid-enforced changes to the last five events on the V8 calendar, which will be squeezed into six weeks.

Mount Panorama’s marquee 1000km race – scheduled for December 5 – will follow four consecutive rounds at Sydney Motorsport Park, the last of which will feature two 250km races.

Following the month-long SMP swing, which starts this weekend after a three-month lay-off, the drivers then have one weekend to catch their breath before the biggest race of the year at Bathurst.

Supercars veteran James Courtney said it was going to be a “crazy” end to the season.

“It’s been three months (off) and then we’re ‘bang’, four weekends in a row on and then one weekend off and then the biggest race of the year,” he said.

“That’s going to be pretty big. Going from two 250km races that last weekend at Sydney then into the 1000km race, that’s going to be pretty tough.

“I don’t think anyone has thought that through with western Sydney, it’s going to be crazy hot out at Eastern Creek then obviously out at Bathurst it will be the same. I think Bathurst will probably be one of the hardest ones that we have done in a long time.”

Supercars have not raced since Townsville in July due to Covid outbreaks and lockdowns in NSW and Victoria and the ensuing border complications.

The Bathurst 1000 was originally shifted to the start of November before it was again moved to the start of the summer.

Triple Eight team boss Roland Dane expected the temperatures at Mount Panorama at the start of December to severely test the drivers, including his stars Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup, who sit one and two in the championship.

“I don’t necessarily think coming off four weekends in a row is going to make a lot of difference but certainly the weather up there, that can make a lot of difference,” Dane said. “So the weather conditions are likely to make it tougher on everyone, on the crews, on everyone at the beginning of December.

“It’s two months after our normal date and of course well and truly in the Australian summer. I don’t expect it to be easy for anyone.”

Supercars great Mark Skaife said hotter weather in December could completely alter the race strategy of teams and the way the cars were set up late in the day.

“When the ambient temperature is hotter, the normal regime in recent years is that you do three stints at the end to finish. I don’t know if you could do three stints to finish if it is significantly hotter,” Skaife said.

“That might change teams’ policy about who starts and what the last couple of stints look like could be totally different. And it could change the way that you tune a car, too, because traditionally in October, late afternoon, it starts to cool off, more shadows, cooler track temperatures, cars go faster.”