A little win for the Sandown 500

A SUBTLE change made to the 2024 Sandown 500 schedule should go a long way towards avoiding a repeat of the time certain finish that cut last year’s edition short.

The 2023 Sandown enduro was won by Triple Eight’s Broc Feeney and Jamie Whincup in just 158 laps – three short of the intended 161.

The proposed window for last year’s September classic was 2:15-5:45pm.

That was then affected by track repairs necessitated due to a crash in the preceding Super2 race; as a result, the race actually started at 2:33pm.

Officials tried to cover that by extending the time certain finish by 10 minutes (it couldn’t go further due to Sandown’s strict 6pm curfew), but it ultimately wasn’t enough to get the full 500km in – despite there only being two Safety Car interventions.

Supercars has adjusted accordingly for this time around, moving the start forward to 2:05pm but keeping 5:45pm as the designated cut-off point.

FULL SCHEDULE: 2024 Sandown 500

That makes for a 220-minute race window, as opposed to the 202 minutes that were ultimately allowed 12 months ago.

Operating off a 1m12s average lap time, that extra 18-minute wiggle room would equate to roughly 15 racing laps.

The 2024 Penrite Oil Sandown 500 will take place across September 13-15.