Townsville 400
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| Race Information | |
| Venue | Townsville Street Circuit |
| Number of times held | 8 |
| First held | 2009 |
| Race Format | |
| Race 1 | |
| Laps | 70 |
| Distance | 200 km |
| Race 2 | |
| Laps | 70 |
| Distance | 200 km |
| Last Event (2016) | |
| Overall Winner | |
 Shane van Gisbergen | Triple Eight Race Engineering |
| Race Winners | |
 Jamie Whincup | Triple Eight Race Engineering |
| Shane van Gisbergen | Triple Eight Race Engineering |
The Townsville 400 (formally known as the Castrol Edge Townsville 400) is an annual motor racing event for Supercars, held on the Townsville Street Circuit in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. The event has been held since 2009.[1]
Format
The event is staged over a three-day weekend, from Friday to Sunday. Two forty-minute practice sessions are held on Friday. Saturday features a twenty-minute qualifying session which decides the grid positions for the following 200 kilometre race. A twenty-minute qualifying session is held on Sunday, succeeded by a top ten shootout, the combined results of which decide the grid for the following 200 km race.[2]
In 2014 only, the event was extended to 500 kilometres overall, with two 125 km races on Saturday and a 250 km race on Sunday.
History
The event was announced in late 2007, following the allocation of funding from both the federal and the Queensland state government.[3] The event became the third Queensland event on the calendar, joining Queensland Raceway in Ipswich and the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit on the Gold Coast. However, Townsville did become the first major motor racing event to be held in the North Queensland region.[3] The event is held in early July each year.
Jamie Whincup won the first race on the circuit in 2009, with James Courtney winning the Sunday race.[4] Whincup would go on to win the Saturday race again in 2010 with Mark Winterbottom this time winning the second race. 2011 and 2012 saw four consecutive wins for Holden, with Whincup winning three more races at the circuit. In 2013, Russell Ingall broke the all time championship event starts record at the event.[5] In the Sunday race, the Holden Racing Team scored a one-two finish with Tander leading home Courtney.[6] They would repeat the one-two finish in the second Saturday race of the 2014 event.[7] Winterbottom won both races in 2015 to become the only driver other than Whincup, who achieved the feat in 2012, to achieve a clean sweep of the event.[8]
Whincup's record is unsurpassed in Townsville, winning eight of the sixteen races held at the track. With Tander and Winterbottom (three each) also winning multiple races at the track, only six drivers have managed to win a race at the event.
Winners
Multiple winners
By driver
| Race Wins | Driver |
|---|---|
| 8 | Jamie Whincup |
| 3 | Garth Tander |
| Mark Winterbottom |
By team
| Race Wins | Team |
|---|---|
| 9 | Triple Eight Race Engineering |
| 4 | Prodrive Racing Australia1 |
| 3 | Holden Racing Team |
By manufacturer
| Race Wins | Manufacturer |
|---|---|
| 11 | Holden |
| 6 | Ford |
- Notes
- ^1 – Prodrive Racing Australia was known as Ford Performance Racing from 2003 to 2014, hence their statistics are combined.
Event sponsors
- 2009: Dunlop
- 2010–13: Sucrogen
- 2014: Castrol and TAFE Queensland
- 2015–16: Castrol Edge
See also
References
- ↑ Allan Edwards (29 September 2008). "2009 V8 Supercar calendar released". Official site of the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series. Archived from the original on 17 August 2009. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
- ↑ "V8 Supercars Operations Manual 2016 - Division A - Administration Rules" (PDF). Supercars. 23 February 2016. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
- 1 2 Peskett, Karl (14 November 2007). "Townsville to get V8 Supercars street race". Car Advice. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
- ↑ Greenhalgh, David; Howard, Graham; Wilson, Stewart (2011). The official history: Australian Touring Car Championship - 50 Years. St Leonards, New South Wales: Chevron Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-9805912-2-4.
- ↑ "Commemorative number for Ingall in Townsville". SpeedCafe. 28 June 2013. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
- ↑ Bartholomaeus, Stefan (7 July 2013). "HRT emphatically breaks victory drought". SpeedCafe. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
- ↑ Bartholomaeus, Stefan (5 July 2014). "Tander leads HRT one-two in Race 21". Speedcafe. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
- ↑ Bartholomaeus, Stefan (12 July 2015). "Mark Winterbottom takes Townsville double". Speedcafe. Retrieved 8 September 2015.