Van Gisbergen criticises Supercars TV demands, race finish rules

The Surfers Paradise stoppage on Sunday meant Van Gisbergen was denied an opportunity to try to reclaim the Supercars lead he had lost to Scott McLaughlin in Saturday's opener.

Despite two attempts to get through the weather, heavy rainfall and lightning over the circuit left organisers no choice but to call off the race eight laps short of the crucial midway point required to have an official result.

Under Supercars' 'time-certain' finish rules, the race had to end by 4.48pm local time. It was eventually called off at 4.25pm.

The situation led to van Gisbergen calling for both time-certain finishes and inflexible start times to be binned, the Triple Eight driver convinced that Sunday's consistent weather warnings should have prompted an earlier race start.

"We have this conversation every time there's a time certain race," he said. "It ruins it for the fans, the drivers, everyone.

"The TV station we're on should be flexible like that."

Both the hard start time and time-certain finish point exist primarily to help broadcaster Fox Sports schedule its programming - something Craig Lowndes acknowledged in response to his team-mate's viewpoint.

"From what I understand, it's more the TV world, it's more important for them to get the right time slot," said Lowndes.

Van Gisbergen's Triple Eight boss Roland Dane said organisers should have accepted they had been beaten by "God and the weather" rather than trying to restart the race to get to the mid-way point.

The race was initially red-flagged at 3.25pm with 37 of its scheduled 102 laps complete.

It was restarted 35 minutes later behind the safety car in an attempt to reach the crucial 51-lap point, but was red-flagged for good six laps later.

"Safety comes first, and I don't just mean safety of the drivers, I mean safety of the corner marshals, the spectators, the camera crews out on the rigs and everything," said Dane.

"It was absolutely clear this weather was getting worse before it got better.

"We were right to suspend the race, we were utterly wrong to try and restart it then.

"Seriously, Stevie Wonder could have worked it out better.

"We need to just accept the fact that sometimes we have to look at the big picture.

"We have people all over us all the time about OH&S [occupational health and safety], and quite rightly so most of the time.

"We absolutely need to be a little bit smarter about when it is raining like this and running races.

"There comes a point where you simply have to say God and the weather got the better of us, and don't be ashamed of it."