The V8 Supercar Championship field will be reduced to just 28 cars.
The decision to officially slash the current number of racing entries was made unanimously on Wednesday at a category board meeting, and board member Larry Perkins said it was the right move for the sport.
“Absolutely, the preferred grid for us is 28.” said Perkins.
“The [financial] pie’s only so big, and cutting the pie into 28 slices is better than 32 where you all go away a bit hungry. Whereas 28 of a better-quality pie just makes more sense.”
While details on the how the process will be carried out and the timing of such implementation is expected to be revealed over the course of the Clipsal 500 weekend, Perkins said the decision has always been on the radar.
“We’ve always considered that grids were too big; we’ve been oversubscribing to all of the tracks we’ve had contracts with.
We’ve never entered into a contract that requires more than 28 so [up until now] we’ve kept bringing too many cars to the tracks.”
Perkins admitted the only time the field may be increased would be for the two-driver endurance races at Phillip Island and Bathurst later in the year, in which selected Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series entires may be invited to join the grid. But in the meantime, Perkins believed having a reduced field would not affect on-track competitiveness.
“Not one in the slightest. You name to me the last four cars on the grid! You may be able to for all the wrong reasons but they’re not here anymore.”
In 2007, V8SA announced a restructure the current two-tier franchise system with all level two licences planned for upgrade to level one status this year. The demise of WPS Racing last week opened the door for licence numbers to be reduced, and with its available L1 licences now bought between Perkins and Britek Motorsport, each of their remaining L2 entries have now been taken off the market by V8SA.
Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom however still favoured a greater number of cars to compete against.
“Because it gives drivers more options to turn up,” said Winterbottom. “To get on the grid you sacrifice a lot of your life and it’s going to be sad if people do miss out. But you have to keep the sport professional. In my mind though I’d rather 32 or 40 if you could fit them on, the more the better for the sport.”
Author:Filippa Guarna
Source:BigPond Sport
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