Fast Facts - Watpac Townsville 400
1. Prodrive Racing Australia driver Jason Bright will make his 250th Virgin Australia Supercars Championship round start in Townsville, becoming just the fourth driver in history to achieve this feat. Bright, who debuted at Symmons Plains in Tasmania in 1997 in a one-off, fill-in appearance for Steve Richards with Garry Rogers Motorsport, joins Craig Lowndes, Garth Tander and Russell Ingall in the ‘250 Club’.
2. Bright’s team, Prodrive Racing Australia, also has reason to celebrate in Townsville. The Falcon team will compete in its 200th Virgin Australia Supercars Championship round, having made its debut under the Ford Performance Racing banner at the 2003 Clipsal 500 in Adelaide. The Melbourne-based team has raced under the PRA banner since the beginning of 2015.
3. Shell V-Power Racing Team has won seven races so far in the 2017 championship, a feat the Queensland-based team hasn’t achieved since way back in 1995, the year John Bowe won the championship. The team has also collected more podium finishes this year than any other - 14.
4. Jamie Whincup has scored the most wins of any driver in Townsville with eight wins on the hybrid road/street course. He’s also the only driver to win from pole position in Townsville, starting from ‘P1’ on Saturday in 2010 and again on Saturday last year.
5. Three teams - Triple Eight, Prodrive and Walkinshaw - have done the majority of the winning in Townsville. Between them these teams have won 16 of the 17 races held in North Queensland, the only other win going to Dick Johnson Racing back in 2009 with driver James Courtney.
6. Amazingly, no Townsville Supercars race has ever featured a 100 percet finishing rate across the 17 previous races held since the first event back in 2009.
7. Mark Winterbottom has taken more pole positions in Townsville than any other driver - four. Jamie Whincup is the only other multiple pole-scorer (three) with seven different drivers scoring the last seven poles at the circuit dating back to 2014.
8. An Australian driver is yet to lead the pointscore in this year’s Virgin Australia Supercars Championship. New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen was the points leader after each of the first four races of the season and his countryman Fabian Coulthard has since then assumed control. The closest an Australian has been to the lead has been four points (Coulthard to Whincup after Race 10, Winton).
9. The Vodafone Safety Car has appeared in 12 of the 17 races held in Townsville, with the 2015 event the only time a Safety Car didn’t appear at all across a Supercars race event at the circuit.
10. The closest race-winning margin in Townsville Supercars history is 0.2706s on Saturday in 2015 when Mark Winterbottom led home Prodrive stable mate David Reynolds.
