Melbourne lockdown leaves Supercars teams in limbo

The state will kick off a seven-day lockdown at midnight tonight as Melbourne battles a fresh COVID-19 outbreak.

A cluster first linked to a leak in the hotel quarantine system in neighbouring South Australia has now spread to 26 positive cases, while thousands of people have been identified as close contacts.

For the next seven days Victorians will only be able to leave home for five reasons – shopping for necessary goods and services, authorised work or permitted education, exercise for a maximum of two hours per day, care-giving and medical reasons, and to get a COVID-19 vaccination.

This weekend's Winton SuperSprint has already been postponed until later in the year, however the Melbourne-based teams are still in limbo as they face a potential pre-lockdown border run.

As first reported by Motorsport.com yesterday, six teams – Walkinshaw Andretti United, Erebus Motorsport, Team 18, Tickford Racing, Kelly Grove Racing and Blanchard Racing Team – are on standby to bolt from Melbourne to help ease concerns over border controls from other states.

The Northern Territory border is the flashpoint, with the Darwin Triple Crown just three weeks away.

As of midnight last night anybody entering the Territory from Greater Melbourne or Bendigo will have to undergo 14 days of supervised quarantine at their own expense of $2500.

Unless there is a drastic improvement in the Melbourne situation, the affected teams will need to either be in NT quarantine, or be in another jurisdiction that has free access to the NT, by June 3.

The border to New South Wales remains open for now, which means teams could feasibly head north to see out that 14 days.

However the question is when to leave Melbourne, with fears even the NSW border could snap shut in the coming days.

That's why teams are on standby to leave as soon as today, although Motorsport.com understands there is hesitancy from some teams to make another border dash after the 100-plus day road trip they were forced on last year.

Under very similar circumstances the Melbourne teams fled their state border on a few hours notice in July 2020 and didn't return home until after the season-ending Bathurst 1000 in October.