Auckland Motorsport Park's delays and what they mean for Supercars in NZ
The NZ Angle
The Supercars round at Pukekohe Park Raceway was, for a long stretch, the most significant international motorsport event held on New Zealand soil each year. It drew crowds that neither the NZ Rally Championship nor the Toyota Racing Series could match in terms of raw attendance, and it gave local fans a rare chance to watch Gen2 machinery at close quarters. When Pukekohe ran its final round in 2022, the understood position was that Auckland Motorsport Park would fill the gap once resource consent and construction cleared. That timeline has slipped repeatedly. For fans and the local motorsport economy, that slippage has real cost. Hospitality operators, transport providers, and the broader Auckland region all benefited from the event weekend. From a driver perspective, the absence of a NZ round has also reduced the competitive context for Kiwi Supercars competitors. Shane van Gisbergen's move to NASCAR has further complicated the narrative around New Zealand's standing in the series. Whether Championship organisers still view NZ as a viable market without a confirmed venue is a legitimate question, and the answer depends almost entirely on what happens with AMP's consenting path over the next twelve months.
Two seasons have passed since Supercars last raced at Pukekohe. With Auckland Motorsport Park still mired in consenting, the question is whether New Zealand has lost its round for good.
The last Supercars lap turned at Pukekohe Park Raceway was in November 2022. Since then, two full championship seasons have been run and won without a New Zealand round on the calendar. The replacement venue, Auckland Motorsport Park at Drury, remains unbuilt in any meaningful sense. Resource consent has been the central problem, and the process has moved through multiple hearings and appeals with no confirmed resolution in sight.
What that actually means for the Supercars calendar is worth being precise about. Supercars Championship management has repeatedly left the door open for a NZ return, but open doors and committed calendar slots are different things. A promoter cannot sell tickets, sign broadcast agreements, or bring freight logistics into alignment without a confirmed venue and a date. AMP has been unable to provide either. The working assumption from the 2022 farewell was a two-to-three-year gap before Drury was ready. That window has already closed without a sod being turned on the main circuit.
What the consenting process has actually blocked
AMP's resource consent situation involves both the Drury South Crossing development and specific conditions around noise, traffic, and land use that apply to the motorsport precinct within it. Submitters raised concerns through the hearing process that extended proceedings well beyond the original timetable. The Environment Court phase added further delay. At no point has consent been flatly refused, but the conditions attached to any approval have been contested, and that litigation takes time that the Supercars calendar simply does not have.
To get a round on the 2027 calendar, the practical deadline for a promoter to commit infrastructure, negotiate with Supercars, and secure a broadcast window is somewhere around mid-2025. That is not a generous margin from where things currently stand. A consent decision that arrives in late 2025 or into 2026 leaves no room to construct even the minimum circuit and support infrastructure required to host a round at international standard.
The circuit as planned is a permanent road-course design sitting alongside the broader Drury development. It is not a temporary street circuit, which means there is no shortcut path where you bolt barriers to existing tarmac and run a race. The lead time on a permanent circuit is measured in years, not months.
Whether 2027 is still a real conversation
The honest answer is that 2027 is possible in the sense that it cannot be ruled out, but the conditions for it to happen are narrowing. A consent decision confirmed by the end of 2024, followed by immediate groundbreaking and an aggressive 18-to-24-month construction phase, would put the circuit in a position to host a round in late 2027. That is the optimistic scenario. Each month without a decision reduces the probability.
Supercars as a series has its own pressures. The calendar has been reshuffled regularly, with international events in New Zealand, New Caledonia, and other markets competing for slots against the domestic rounds that teams, sponsors, and broadcasters depend on. The series walked away from international rounds during COVID and found the domestic calendar could carry the product. That makes a NZ return a commercial negotiation rather than a scheduling inevitability, which it arguably was when Pukekohe's crowd numbers were consistently strong.
Shane van Gisbergen's departure for NASCAR in 2023 changed the NZ angle considerably. He was, for a large part of the NZ fan base, the primary reason to follow Supercars closely. His presence at a Pukekohe or AMP round was a commercial asset. Without that drawcard, the promoter's job of selling tickets to an Auckland crowd becomes harder, and Supercars' appetite for the logistical cost of an NZ freight movement has less offset on the revenue side.
What a permanent loss would mean
If AMP does not progress and no alternative venue emerges, New Zealand's position on the Supercars calendar is gone in any practical sense. Pukekohe is no longer available in its previous configuration. There is no other circuit in the country with the straight length, run-off, and pit facility to host the series at its current technical standard. Highlands at Cromwell is a high-quality modern circuit but is not scaled for an international touring car round. Hampton Downs has developed significantly since it opened, but its layout and capacity were not built to Supercars spec.
The deeper issue is that losing a round is not a temporary gap. Calendar relationships take years to rebuild. If another international market fills that slot and delivers consistent commercial returns, the case for displacing it in favour of a venue that is still under construction becomes a very difficult conversation for a New Zealand promoter to win.
The next twelve months will effectively decide this. A positive consent outcome before mid-2025 keeps 2027 in reach. Anything beyond that, and the realistic conversation shifts to 2028 at the earliest, by which point the series' calendar structure may have moved on entirely.
By Paul Gray. See our editorial standards or email sales@premiumwholesalecars.co.nz with corrections.
More motorsport
TRS 2026: a development series or a European finishing school?
The 2026 Toyota Racing Series wrapped with a grid heavy on Formula Regional graduates from Europe. Whether that serves the series' original purpose is worth asking.
Van Gisbergen's 2026 Supercars wildcards: what's confirmed and what it means
Shane van Gisbergen is committed to NASCAR full-time in 2026 but will make selective Supercars appearances. Here is what is known about his schedule and whether those starts count toward the championship.
TRS 2026: are rising costs shutting out Kiwi club talent?
The 2026 Toyota Racing Series wrapped with fewer NZ-based drivers than five years ago. We look at what's pushing local talent out of the series built to develop it.