10 Fast Facts: Pizza Hut Winton SuperSprint

1) This year marks the 33rd time the Australian Touring Car Championship/Repco Supercars Championship has visited Winton Motor Raceway. The first round was held in 1985 and since then the only years the championship hasn’t visited the venue have been 1987, 1996, 2005, and the COVID-impacted 2020 and 2021 seasons when Winton’s scheduled rounds were cancelled.

2) A pair of teams will reach significant milestones at the Pizza Hut Winton SuperSprint. Erebus Motorsport and Team 18 will both make their 300th championship race starts in Race 2 of the weekend. Both debuted at the 2013 Adelaide 500, the former as a three-car Mercedes-AMG E63 squad and the latter operating as the fourth Ford Performance Racing entry.

3) A pair of young guns will also bring up milestone race starts over the course of the Winton weekend. Truck Assist Racing driven by MSR’s Jack Le Brocq is scheduled to start his 150th championship race in Race 2, while Boost Mobile Powered by Erebus’ Brodie Kostecki will make his 50th championship race start in Race 1.

4) The Shell V-Power Racing Team is poised to become the second team to record 300 podium finishes across its ATCC/Supercars Championship history, its tally sitting on 297 prior to the weekend. Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen could also reach 150 championship podium finishes this weekend; his tally prior to Winton is 148, which is third on the all-time list behind Jamie Whincup (237) and Craig Lowndes (169).

5) Ford has been the dominant marque at Winton since the Car of the Future era began in 2013, taking victory in nine out of the 17 races held including the three most recent across the 2018 and 2019 events. Fords have also taken the last seven straight ARMOR ALL Pole Positions at Winton, and 10 out of the last 11.

6) A pair of Ford legends hold the record for the most ATCC/RSC race wins for a driver at Winton with John Bowe and Glenn Seton each taking five wins across their Hall of Fame careers. The record among active drivers is four held by Mark Winterbottom, with James Courtney (3) and Tim Slade (2) the only other drivers on the current grid to have won more than once at the circuit.

7) Winton has proven to be a bogey track for Red Bull Ampol Racing since the dawn of the Car of the Future era. The Dunlop Teams Championship leader has posted nine race wins in its history at Winton but only one of those has come since the start of the 2013 season: van Gisbergen’s triumph in the Sunday race in 2017.

Triple Eight's last Winton win came in 2017

8) The addition of two wildcard entries brings the tally of Winton ATCC/Supercars debutants to eight, five of whom have previous Supercars ladder race experience at the circuit. Bryce Fullwood raced at Winton in Super2 while Broc Feeney, Jordan Boys, Jayden Ojeda and Jake Kostecki all made Super3 starts at the circuit. Will Brown and Thomas Randle have raced in other categories at Winton, while Brodie Kostecki will race at the circuit for the first time this weekend.

9) Winton was the site of the only race in ATCC/RSC history which did not have a Holden in the field. This occured in the first round the circuit hosted in 1985 – the start of the championship’s international Group A touring car rules era.

10) It has been over two decades since we had a Safety Car-free weekend at Winton. The last time an ATCC/RSC round went without the introduction of the Safety Car at any stage over the weekend was 1999.

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