The Newcastle event was set to open the 2022 campaign on the first weekend of March, marking its first appearance in the calendar since 2019.
However it will now be pushed back to later in the year due to the wave of COVID-19 currently battering Australia’s east coast.
It’s understood that concerns over crowd numbers, critical for the viability of a street circuit event, has forced the late change in the schedule.
The opener will instead move to Sydney Motorsport Park, which is expected to be announced later today.
With SMP replacing Newcastle, one logical option is that Newcastle will simply replace SMP as the final round of the 2022 season. However Motorsport.com understands a replacement Newcastle date is yet to be formalised.
SMP has played a key role in keeping Supercars going through the pandemic. The Eastern Creek circuit hosted back-to-back rounds to get the 2020 season re-started, while it hosted a quadruple header at the back end of the 2021 season.
With this swap the circuit will effectively have hosted five of the last six rounds, split only by the 2021 Bathurst 1000.