'Major consequences': Supercars umpire's stern Finals warning
Craig Baird warns against questionable tactics in The Finals
Team tactics chatter getting louder as Supercars Finals approaches
Baird insists teams face "major consequences" over manipulating races
Motorsport Australia Driving Standards Advisor Craig Baird insists there will be "major" consequences for teams that cross the line to influence the championship fight in The Finals.
Team tactics in the final races of the season have proven a major talking point in 2025, with Supercars set for its first ever elimination-style Finals Series to decide the champion.
Team tactics are nothing new in title fights, yet there have been some key flashpoints.
Notably, at the 2006 finale at Phillip Island, title contender Craig Lowndes found himself the Ford filling in a Holden sandwich. Garth Tander, teammate of Lowndes’s title rival Rick Kelly, dropped his lap times enough to back Lowndes into Kelly. Tander was first shown a bad sportsmanship flag, then hit with a drive-through penalty.
The Finals will be contested over three elimination rounds on the Gold Coast, Sandown and Adelaide. There, teams will have three cracks at getting their respective drivers into the next round, and many already expect fireworks.
In his Supercars.com column, Lowndes himself wrote he wouldn't be surprised to see team tactics. Championship-winning engineer Scott Sinclair suggested teams will look at "strategic plays focused on helping the lead car by hindering or irritating your competitors," which would be the "equivalent of what a 'defender' does in any ball sport."
Blanchard Racing Team rookie Aaron Cameron said drivers need to be "calm" should they try certain tactics. Brad Jones Racing's Bryce Fullwood went a step further, claiming drivers would be willing to accept penalties to help their teammates.
Speaking to Supercars.com, Baird suggested there could be wider-reaching penalties should teams resort to controversial tactics.
“In Adelaide, for example, you’ll have 20 guys who face zero consequences for their own championships, but they can play a major part in the outcome of the overall championship," Baird explained.
“We're having discussions at the moment where the penalties have to be really, really harsh if you change the outcome of a championship just to help a teammate… we’ve seen it in NASCAR, and they don’t like it.
"We've already got rules in place where manufacturers can't team up and group up together to disadvantage another manufacturer. I don't think some teams actually realise how harsh some penalties can be if you're altering the outcome of a championship. That stuff must have major consequences.
“Some drivers may also suggest they’ll get payback, thinking they might not have anything to lose. But they will have something to lose, as will their teams.”
The 2006 championship ultimately led to a winner-takes-all final race, with Kelly spinning Lowndes out. Kelly served a drive-through penalty yet won the title, as Lowndes crawled home with a damaged Falcon.
Lowndes's aggrieved Triple Eight squad entered a protest that led to a marathon four-hour appeal hearing. The stewards decided that the original decision of a drive-through penalty was the correct punishment, and that no further punishment was necessary.
Baird cited the 2019 Bathurst 1000, when DJR Team Penske were found guilty of breaching FIA rules, fined $250,000 and deducted 300 teams' points, as to how severely teams can be punished.
While Scott McLaughlin and Alex Premat kept their Bathurst win, it was a similar scenario to 2006, with a pure sporting conclusion overshadowed by controversy.
Baird has been applauded for his "play on" approach to racing in 2025, letting drivers sort it out on track. However, he still wants drivers and teams to "play within the posts" with everything on the line, rather than go off course and risk championships being decided after the chequered flag.
“Drivers, team principals, engineers, we record all the radios. If someone said, 'Hey, take 'em out’, whoever came up with that plan, there's consequences,” Baird said.
“There has to be consequences, because the way The Finals work, it's down to the last four on the last day. The part of it I really don't want, is that the ref shouldn't have any involvement in the outcome of the championship. You want the game to be played within the posts. Not two months later in appeals, courts and everything else.
"Because if someone’s in with a chance to win the championship and they get taken out, that's not going to be taken lightly. If you think you're going to help your teammate win the championship by taking a contender out, you may want to think differently.
“They're more than welcome to go to Adelaide with no ref, but I can tell you now, it wouldn’t end very well. You still have to have a ref, otherwise the rugby game will last 10 minutes, and it will be a disaster. There'll be no cars left.
"A lot of these drivers actually race very respectful. They want to race hard, but they also want to race fair. And that was the new sort of guidelines was just to go, 'Hey, play it hard, play it fair. If you're a grub, a penalty will apply’.
"It's not like a video game. You can't just restart. These guys have got to get it right."
