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Fast Facts: Coates Hire Ipswich SuperSprint

26 Jul 2015
Who racks up a milestone this weekend, how important is qualifying on pole and just who has the runs on the board at 'QR'? Here's all you need to know
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Highlights - Race 25 2014 Coates Hire Ipswich 400

1. V8 Supercars Championship leader Mark Winterbottom is riding the crest of a wave at the moment but Queensland Raceway is a venue where he's been without much recent success.

The Pepsi Max PRA Ford pilot has won two races at 'QR' but none since 2008 - there have been 15 races held there since then in which he's scored five podium finishes but none of them have been victories.

Winterbottom has only scored one pole position in Ipswich (on Sunday in 2009) and has only qualified on the front row there once in his last 13 races (2010-2014).

2. Theteam may not be dominating the Championship so far this season,but Red Bull Racing Australia has the runs on the board in the recent past at Queensland Raceway.

The team's cars driven by Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup have won eight of the last 11 V8 Supercars Championship races held at the Ipswich circuit from 2011 to 2014.

Triple Eight Race Engineering has won more races than any other team at Queensland Raceway - 10.

3. Craig Lowndes and Garth Tander remain the only two active drivers in the V8 Supercars Championship to have competed in each and every one of the 18 rounds held at Queensland Raceway since the first in 1999.

So it's unsurprising that they are also the two most winning drivers there with Lowndes taking 11 race wins and Tander five.

4. Freightliner Racing's Fabian Coulthard and The Bottle-O Racing's David Reynolds will both achieve a milestone at Queensland Raceway - their 50th V8 Supercars Championship round start with their respective teams.

Both debuted with Brad Jones Racing and Rod Nash Racing respectively at the 2012 Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.

5. Supercheap Auto Racing's Tim Slade will start his 200th V8 Supercars Championship race in the second Saturday sprint race at Queensland Raceway.

The venue is the site of his very first V8SC podium finish back in 2011 and he now has 10 career podium results, however none of them have yet included a victory.

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Slade sits second to Murray Carter in championship record books for the most podium finishes in championship history without a victory.

6. Picking pole position at Queensland Raceway could be tough in 2015 given four different cars have taken the last four pole positions there.

Will Davison took pole for Ford in the second Sunday race in 2013 and the honours were shared last year between Craig Lowndes (Holden), Scott McLaughlin (Volvo) and James Moffat (Nissan).

Three of the last four pole positions at Queensland Raceway have been decided by less than five-hundredths of a second.

7. Tekno Autosports will make its 150th V8 Supercars Championship race start in the first Saturday sprint race at Queensland Raceway.

The Queensland-based single car team is yet to record a V8SC podium result at its home circuit since van Gisbergen joined the team in 2013. His best result there in that time is a fourth place (2014).

8. Qualifying on the front row is crucial to success at Queensland Raceway, no matter the race format or distance - 21 of the last 26 race winners since 2004 have started on the front row of the grid.

The lowest grid position for a V8 Supercars Championship race winner at Queensland Raceway is 9th by Mark Skaife in 2006, though that was a reverse grid race, the only one held in championship history in Ipswich.

9. Ash Walsh (Erebus Motorsport V8) and Andre Heimgartner (Super Black Racing) are the only two drivers to be making their first V8 Supercars Championship appearance at Queensland Raceway, however the two have plenty of history there in other categories.

Walsh finished runner-up in last year's Dunlop Series round to Paul Dumbrell and won the 2007 Australian Formula Ford Championship round there while Heimgartner scored his first DVS race win at Queensland Raceway back in 2013.

10. Eggleston Motorsport is aiming for its third straight Queensland Raceway round victory in the Dunlop Series, a feat never achieved before by another team.

Jack Perkins won the 2013 round for EMS and Paul Dumbrell won the 2014 round with Dumbrell aiming to join Dean Canto as the only driver to score multiple DVS round victories at the Ipswich layout.

The Coates Hire Ipswich SuperSprint kicks off this Friday, August 30. Tickets are still availableand fans can tune in to FOX SPORTS for full live coverage, or TEN and ONE for highlights. Click here for all the event information

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