Tyre rules tweaked ahead of 2021 season resumption

Tyre rules have been tweaked following last week's meeting by the Supercars Commission.

The recently-announced Bunnings Trade Phillip Island SuperSprint will feature new event allocated tyres from Practice 1 onwards.

There will be no pre-marked tyres from a team’s tyre bank at the event, which is an effective tyre allocation substitution for the New Zealand event.

Additional Driver and Ride session pre-marked tyres aren’t permitted to be used after Friday.

Teams will have eight new sets for the start of Saturday practice, with five sets allowed from ARMOR ALL Qualifying onwards. Teams will hand back three sets after Practice 2.

It was also confirmed that, in accordance with Rule D1. and Rules D17.7.6, D17.7.7, D17.7.8, testing of the Dunlop Super Soft tyre will be prohibited until the completion of the Winton SuperSprint.

Winton will return in October

The Winton round will be the second in 2021, following June’s Merlin Darwin Triple Crown, to feature the all-new Super Soft compound.

Victorian teams tested at Winton following May's OTR SuperSprint, but did not test the new Super Soft tyre compound.

The Winton event was due to host the debut of the Super Soft tyre, but it was delayed from its initial May date due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Essentially, the tyre allocations were swapped for the two events, with Darwin becoming the ‘new’ Winton.

The new-for-2021 Super Soft compound was introduced for the two lowest degradation circuits, being Winton and Darwin.

The Hard compound will be used at both Bathurst events and Phillip Island, with the Soft tyre to be used at the remaining events.

Both Winton and Phillip Island will feature for the first time since 2019.

The 2021 Repco Supercars Championship will resume at Winton across October 2-3.