2017 Supercars Championship

The 2017 Supercars Championship (formally known as the 2017 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship)^[1] will be an FIA-sanctioned international motor racing series for Supercars, which prior to 1 July 2016 had been known as V8 Supercars. It will be the nineteenth running of the Supercars Championship and the twenty-first series in which Supercars have contested the premier Australian touring car title.

The 2017 season will see the category undergo a substantial revision of its technical regulations, with the introduction of "Gen2 Supercar" rules which will open the championship up to a wider range of body shapes and engine configurations.^[2]

Teams and drivers

The following drivers are currently under contract for 2017:

Season entries
Team	Vehicle	No.	Driver
Walkinshaw Racing[3]	Holden VF Commodore	2	Scott Pye[4]
		22	James Courtney[4]
Erebus Motorsport	Holden VF Commodore	4	Dale Wood[5]
		9	David Reynolds[6]
Prodrive Racing Australia	Ford FG X Falcon	5	Mark Winterbottom[7]
		6	Cameron Waters[8]
Rod Nash Racing (PRA)		55	Chaz Mostert[7]
Nissan Motorsport	Nissan Altima L33	7	Todd Kelly[9]
		15	Rick Kelly[9]
		23	Michael Caruso[10]
		TBA	Simona de Silvestro[9]
Brad Jones Racing	Holden VF Commodore	8	Nick Percat[11]
		14	Tim Slade[11]
TBA (BJR)		TBA	Tim Blanchard[12]
DJR Team Penske	Ford FG X Falcon	12	Fabian Coulthard[13]
		17	Scott McLaughlin[14]
Charlie Schwerkolt Racing[15]	Holden VF Commodore	18	Lee Holdsworth[16]
Tekno Autosports	Holden VF Commodore	19	Will Davison[17]
Garry Rogers Motorsport	TBA[18]	33	James Moffat[19]
Triple Eight Race Engineering	Holden VF Commodore	88	Jamie Whincup[20]
		1	Shane van Gisbergen[21]
		888	Craig Lowndes[21]

Team changes

Volvo will withdraw from the series at the end of the 2016 season.

• Britek Motorsport's entry will no longer be prepared by Brad Jones Racing.^[22]
• Super Black Racing will not compete in the series, with its Racing Entitlement Contract (REC) sold to Prodrive Racing Australia co-owner, Rusty French, who on-sold it to Tim Blanchard.^[23][12]
• Triple Eight Race Engineering will become the official Holden factory team. Walkinshaw Racing, which competed as the factory Holden Racing Team from 1990 to 2016, will become a customer Holden team instead under the Walkinshaw Racing brand.^[3]
• Volvo will withdraw from the series and terminate its association with Garry Rogers Motorsport at the end of the 2016 season.^[18]

Driver changes

• Jason Bright will leave Brad Jones Racing.^[24] Bright will be replaced by Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport's Nick Percat.^[11]
• Scott McLaughlin will move from Garry Rogers Motorsport to DJR Team Penske,^[14] replacing Scott Pye. Pye will leave DJR Team Penske to replace Garth Tander at Walkinshaw Racing.^[4]
• Former IndyCar Series and Formula E driver Simona de Silvestro will join the championship, replacing Dale Wood at Nissan Motorsport.^[9] Having contested the 2015 and 2016 Bathurst 1000 events, De Silvestro will be the first female driver to contest the championship since Melinda Price and Kerryn Brewer in 1998.
• Dale Wood will leave Nissan to join Erebus Motorsport, replacing Shae Davies.^[5]

Scheduled events

The following fourteen events are scheduled to take place in 2017:

Rnd. Event name Circuit Location Format Date 1 Clipsal 500 Adelaide Adelaide Street Circuit Adelaide, South Australia ST 4–5 March 2 Tyrepower Tasmania SuperSprint Symmons Plains Raceway Launceston, Tasmania SP 8–9 April 3 WD-40 Phillip Island SuperSprint Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit Phillip Island, Victoria SP 22–23 April 4 Perth SuperSprint Barbagallo Raceway Perth, Western Australia SP 6–7 May 5 Winton SuperSprint Winton Motor Raceway Benalla, Victoria SP 20–21 May 6 CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown Hidden Valley Raceway Darwin, Northern Territory SP 17–18 June 7 Townsville 400 Townsville Street Circuit Townsville, Queensland ST 8–9 July 8 Coates Hire Ipswich SuperSprint Queensland Raceway Ipswich, Queensland SP 29–30 July 9 Red Rooster Sydney SuperSprint         Sydney Motorsport Park Eastern Creek, New South Wales SP 19–20 August 10 Wilson Security Sandown 500 Sandown Raceway Melbourne, Victoria EC 17 September 11 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000         Mount Panorama Circuit Bathurst, New South Wales EC 8 October 12 Castrol Gold Coast 600 Surfers Paradise Street Circuit Surfers Paradise, Queensland EC 21–22 October 13 ITM Auckland SuperSprint Pukekohe Park Raceway Pukekohe, New Zealand IN 4–5 November 14 Coates Hire Newcastle 500 Newcastle Street Circuit Newcastle, New South Wales ST November1 Source:[25]

Key Icon Meaning ST SuperStreet SP SuperSprint IN International SuperSprint EC Endurance Cup

Notes:

• ^1 — The date for the Coates Hire Newcastle 500 will be confirmed after the publication of the final version 2017 World Rally Championship calendar to avoid a clash with Rally Australia.^[25]

Calendar changes

• The Sydney 500—which was held at the Homebush Street Circuit from 2009 to 2016—will be replaced by a new event, the Newcastle 500.^[26][27] The round will be held on a street circuit in the East End of Newcastle,^[27] and will be run to the SuperStreet format, featuring two races of 250 kilometres.
• The KL City 400 at the Kuala Lumpur Street Circuit in Malaysia is contracted to host an event on the calendar from 2017 to 2019. The running of the event is pending the resolution of legal issues which cancelled the 2016 event,^[28] and it was omitted from the provisional 2017 calendar.^[25]
• Two international rounds to be held at the Sentul Circuit in Indonesia and a street circuit near Bangkok in Thailand were initially included on a draft of the season calendar, but were later deferred until the 2018 season,^[29][30] with a demonstration event planned for Thailand in the interim.^[31]

Format changes

• The Adelaide 500 will return to its original format of two races of 250 kilometres, which was last used in 2013. Event organisers cited the unpopularity of the format used between 2014 and 2016—two races of 125 kilometres followed by one 250 kilometre race—as the reason for the change.^[32]

Rule changes

Technical regulations

The 2017 season will see the introduction of "Gen2 Supercar" regulations. Two-door coupé body styles will be permitted alongside four-door sedans, while the engine regulations will be opened up to include turbocharged four or six-cylinder engines. However, cars will still be required to be based on front-engined, rear wheel drive, four-seater production cars that are sold in Australia. The chassis and control components will be carried over from the New Generation V8 Supercar regulations used between 2013 and 2016.^[2]

Sporting regulations

• Starting in 2017, drivers must earn a racing licence sanctioned by the Confederation of Australian Motorsport in order to be eligible to compete in the category. The licence system will be structured similarly to the Superlicence used in Formula One, with drivers earning points towards their licence by placing in feeder series accredited by CAMS.^[33]
• In a bid to attract more wildcard entries for the Bathurst 1000, the Dunlop Series race run in support of the event will be a non-championship round.^[34]

References