10 stats that mattered: NTI Townsville 500

The NTI Townsville 500 belonged to Shane van Gisbergen and Red Bull Ampol Racing, which combined to leave their rivals for dead.

Jamie Whincup pushed his teammate all the way in both races, but the series leader was decisive when it counted.

The weekend featured two 88-lap, 250km epics, but they produced the same podium on both occasions.

Will it be a different outcome at this weekend’s WD-40 Townsville SuperSprint?

Ahead of this weekend’s return to the Reid Park Street Circuit, Supercars.com lists the 10 key statistics from last weekend’s action.

50) Van Gisbergen’s Race 16 win was the 50th of his career, and 10th of the 2021 season.

It was his 39th win for Triple Eight; he opened his account with two wins for Stone Brothers Racing in 2011, and won nine races for Tekno Autosports between 2013 and 2015.

245) Van Gisbergen will take a season-high 245-point lead into this weekend’s second Townsville event.

He gained 24 points on Whincup, who finished seconds in both races. Will Davison is now third, albeit 370 points adrift.

123) Whincup can feel a touch unlucky; he led 123 of the weekend’s 176 race laps, yet failed to win either race.

Van Gisbergen led 51 laps, with David Reynolds preventing a Red Bull Ampol sweep after leading one lap on Sunday.

22) Whincup did, however, continue his remarkable record in Townsville.

He has won 12 races in Townsville, and his weekend helped him to 22 podiums at the circuit, all in 31 starts!

0.3572) Van Gisbergen belted the field in Saturday’s ARMOR ALL Top Ten Shootout, setting a new record for the largest pole-winning margin in Townsville.

The 0.3572s margin over Whincup eclipsed Craig Lowndes’s 0.3198s margin on Mark Winterbottom in 2011.

60.78) The combined margin, seconds, that Anton De Pasquale was behind van Gisbergen across both races.

De Pasquale, who was third in both races, was 37.45s down in Race 15, and 23.33s adrift in Race 16.

7) There were seven cars on the lead lap in Saturday’s Race 15; the fewest in a race since 2002.

3) The weekend’s two races also went green for the duration.

It was the third time in Townsville (following 2017 and the first 2020 event) that a Townsville weekend didn’t require a Safety Car.

17) Chaz Mostert qualified 17th for Saturday’s Race 15, marking the first time in 2021 he had failed to qualify in the top 10.