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Fast Facts: Coates Hire Sydney 500

29 Nov 2015
Craig Lowndes hits a milestone while Frosty pushes for his first title at a track with tricky history – here are the numbers you need.
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1. Craig Lowndes will start his 250th round this weekend, equalling Russell Ingall for the most starts in Australian Touring Car/V8 Supercars Championship history.

2. Lowndes is fighting for his fourth championship this weekend and his first in 16 years. He has finished runner-up in the pointscore five times since joining Triple Eight in 2005.

3. Championship leader Mark Winterbottom is trying to become the 23rd driver in history to be crowned ATCC/V8SC champion and the first man to win the title for Prodrive Racing Australia.

4. If Winterbottom wins, it will be the 24th time a Ford has won the ATCC/V8SC and the first time since 2010 a Falcon has won the championship.

5. Should Winterbottom win he will also become the first Dunlop Series champion (he won in 2003) to go on and become V8 Supercars Champion.

6. Picking a race winner is tricky at Sydney Olympic Park as nine different drivers have won the 13 races held there. The only multiple winners are Jamie Whincup (three), Craig Lowndes and Shane van Gisbergen (two each).

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7. Pole-sitters are even harder to predict, with eight different teams earning the last eight poles at the venue. Since Will Davison took pole on Sunday in 2011 for FPR (now Prodrive), the next seven poles have been taken by Stone Brothers Racing, Holden Racing Team, Triple Eight, TEKNO Autosports, Erebus Motorsport V8, Brad Jones Racing and Garry Rogers Motorsport.

8. Claiming pole position at Sydney Olympic Park is no guarantee of success – only four times in 13 races has the pole-sitter converted it into a race victory. Races can be won from nearly anywhere on the grid; Jonathon Webb started 21st to win a wild wet race on Saturday in 2010, Craig Lowndes started 16th and still won on Saturday in 2012 and he also started 10th to claim victory on Saturday in 2011.

9. No Sydney 500 V8 Supercars race has been decided by a margin bigger than four seconds. The ‘biggest’ winning margin is 3.9087s from James Courtney to Michael Caruso on Sunday in 2009. The closest finishing margin is 0.6375s from Jonathon Webb to Jason Bright on Saturday in 2010.

10. All 13 races at Sydney Olympic Park have featured at least one Safety Car period – 27 per cent of racing laps conducted at the circuit in V8 Supercars have been run under yellow flag Safety Car conditions. No race has seen all starting cars classified as finishers.

The Coates Hire Sydney 500 kicks off on Friday December 4 – click here for more event information.

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