Fast Facts: Vodafone Gold Coast 600
16 Oct 2018
1. This year marks the 17th time the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship has raced for points on the streets of Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast since the first points-paying event in 2002.
Seven non-championship events were held as part of the annual Gold Coast Indy event prior to that (1994, '96 to 2001).
2. This year is the ninth time the Gold Coast 600 race format has been place since it was first introduced in 2010.
Uniquely, the polesitting car has gone on to win the Saturday race every single time in that period.
3. Scott McLaughlin and Alex Premat won last year’s Sunday race from 13th on the grid – a new record for the lowest starting position by a race-winning car in the Supercars Championship on the Gold Coast.
The previous record was 11th, by James Courtney/Jack Perkins in the 2015 Sunday race.
No team has won more Gold Coast Supercar races than Triple Eight Race Engineering, whose 12 race wins have come in the last 29 races at the venue.
Impressively they have had at least one car finish on the podium in 13 of the last 16 races on the Gold Coast.
5. The Red Bull HRT’s Paul Dumbrell starts his 150th Supercars Championship round on the Gold Coast, becoming just the 28th driver in championship history to reach the mark.
Dumbrell raced full-time in the championship from 2003-11, before stepping back to co-driving duties to focus on business interests outside of racing.
6. The race winner has started on pole position in 13 of the last 21 races held on the Gold Coast.
Since the two-driver, ‘600’ format was introduced to the Gold Coast in 2010 the average number of Safety Car periods per race is 2.63.
8. A streak of 20 Supercars races on the Gold Coast featuring at least one Safety Car intervention came to an end last year on the Sunday, when the race ran green for its duration.
Prior to that, the last Gold Coast Supercars race without a Safety Car was Race 2 in 2007.
9. No Gold Coast Supercars race, whether it be championship or non-championship, has ever had a 100 percent finishing rate with all cars that started being classified as finishers.
10. The closest Supercars race-winning margin on the Gold Coast is 0.2053 seconds from the Sunday race in 2010.
On that occasion, Jamie Whincup’s Vodafone Commodore managed to lead home the Stone Brothers Falcon of his now-Red Bull team-mate Shane van Gisbergen.
Whincup also beat van Gisbergen in the biggest Supercars win on the Gold Coast, leading him to the line by 9.0794s on Sunday in 2016.
