Motorsport: Asian expansion on hold for Supercars

James Golding leads a group of cars at the Sandown 500. Photo / Getty Images

The Supercars 2018 calendar will be revealed next month but there won't be any expansion into Asia.

The category had hoped to introduce at least one race in Asia in 2018 before additional events in 2019 but CEO James Warburton admits the championship will feature Australian and New Zealand events only next year.

Warburton spent the weekend at the Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix and describes his discussion with Formula 1 about featuring at their race weekends as positive.

"It was a very positive weekend," Warburton told Supercars.com.

"Wherever you are in the globe people have an enormous amount of respect for Supercars. People know and love the product.

"We had a great set of meetings, particularly catching up with Sean Bratches (MD of commercial operations) and the Formula 1 team, as well as a series of promoters.
"As always it will come down to the economics, but we also had positive meetings with the Singapore Tourism Board.

"We're working towards opportunities for 2019. Time will tell, but there's a lot of desire to make it work.

"I've got no doubt that joining established events is absolutely the right model for us to pursue."

A 16-race calendar is likely with Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia tipped for an August date while the parties continue to work on an extension with ATEED [Auckland Council's events arm] about continuing at Pukekohe Park Raceway beyond this November.