Supercars says wet tyre variation has no easy fix

Several teams blamed large performance swings between stints at the Gold Coast 500 on Dunlop's wet tyres, an issue first raised by Dick Johnson Racing after Todd Hazelwood's difficult opening stint at The Bend 500. Wet tyres lack batch codes, so teams cannot know their age, and hardness can vary within a batch depending on storage conditions, as the rubber is sensitive to heat and light. Some teams have hardness-tested their wet rubber and say they found significant differences.

Supercars motorsport boss Tim Edwards acknowledged the situation but said "there is no solution". He explained that wet tyres are built over a long period and cannot be matched to a single batch for a given weekend, since teams would otherwise discard hundreds of tyres each race. He said the series must keep a stock of around 3000 wet tyres because production takes time and some may not be used for two years.

Edwards said he was surprised the matter had become such a talking point, noting the same formula and tyres have been used for many years. Dunlop introduced a softer-compound wet tyre with the move to Gen3 in 2023.