Gold Coast 600

Format

The event is staged over a three-day weekend, from Friday to Sunday, with Enduro Cup co-drivers joining the series' primary drives for the third consecutive event. Three thirty-minute practice sessions are held on Friday while a twenty-minute practice session is held on Saturday. Saturday features a twenty-minute qualifying session which decides the grid positions for the following 300 kilometre race. A twenty-minute qualifying session is held on Sunday, succeeded by a top ten shootout, the combined results of which decide the grid for the following 300 km race.

Background

The Gold Coast, of which Surfers Paradise is a suburb, had long had an association with touring cars through Surfers Paradise International Raceway in the suburb of Carrara. The track held numerous rounds of the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC), a previous incarnation of Supercars, between 1969 and 1987.

CART event support

The Gold Coast Indy 300 was first run in 1991, however it was not until 1994 that touring cars joined the event. The event, featuring cars from the ATCC, was run as a non-championship exhibition round, supporting the then CART FedEx Championship Series event. In the next two years, cars from the two-litre Australian Super Touring Championship were a support category at the event; in 1995 as the sole touring car category and in 1996 one of two touring car support categories alongside the return of the ATCC cars. Greg Murphy won the Super Touring event in both years for Brad Jones Racing. From 1997 onwards, the event returned to solely featuring five-litre ATCC cars, the category that was now known as V8 Supercars. The 1998 event was notable for providing Mark Larkham with the only event win of his decade-long full-time touring car career, albeit at a non-championship event. Due to the often crash-filled nature of the rounds, its non-championship status and the relatively quick turn-around time between the event and the Bathurst 1000, some teams used older model cars at the event, such as in 1999 when Paul Radisich won the event with a 1998-spec Ford EL Falcon, instead of their usual AU Falcon.

From 2002, whilst still a support category, the event became an official V8 Supercars championship round, with the series given equal billing to the CART event. From then until 2008, the most common race format was three races over the weekend, with one on Saturday and two on Sunday. The driver with the most points accumulated over the three races was awarded first place for the weekend.

End of open-wheeler era

In late 2008, it was announced the IndyCar Series would not be returning to the Gold Coast in 2009, bringing to an end the Indy era. A1 Grand Prix, which had been scheduled to replace IndyCar, then pulled out of the event with only weeks to go, leaving V8 Supercars as the lead category for the first time in the Gold Coast event's history. Subsequently, to fill the last minute hole in the schedule, the 2009 event expanded its format to 300 km on each Saturday and Sunday, each race split into two 150 km 'legs'. The amount of points accumulated over the two legs determined the individual winner for each day.

International co-drivers

In 2010, the track was shortened from 4.47 km to 2.96 km, and the event became known as the Gold Coast 600 for the first time. To differentiate the event, each team was required to have at least one driver of international reputation as a co-driver. In 2011, this rule was adjusted such that every car (as opposed to every team) had a driver of international repute as a co-driver. These drivers could be Australian, but had to have a strong international pedigree, such as Australian IndyCar driver Will Power. Two races of 300 km were held over the weekend, with one on both Saturday and Sunday. As per the other V8 Supercars endurance races, the co-driver was required to complete at least one-third of each race distance (34 laps).

The 2010 event itself was notable for a famous battle between Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen in which Whincup eventually prevailed to take the win. In 2011, the event was overshadowed by the 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championship tragedy, which occurred one week before the Gold Coast event. This led to the relaxing of the international driver rules, as Holden Racing Team's planned co-driver Dan Wheldon was killed and Ford Performance Racing co-driver Will Power was injured in the 15-car crash. Brad Jones Racing co-driver Tony Kanaan, a close friend of Wheldon, also decided to withdraw from the Gold Coast event following the tragedy. The International Driver Trophy, introduced in 2010, was renamed in Wheldon's honour before the 2011 event.

Also in 2011, Sébastien Bourdais became the first and only driver to win at Surfers Paradise in both a Champ Car (in 2005 and 2007) and a Supercar (in 2011, and then again in 2012). The 2012 event was notable for two large start-line crashes. In the first of which, international driver Ricky Taylor was tipped into a barrel-roll seconds after the start of the race. The race was red flagged, and would eventually require a third attempt at a start following an incident on the second attempt between Nicolas Minassian and Franck Montagny.

Enduro Cup

For the 2013 event, the necessity for each car to have an international co-driver was removed, due to the increasing costs of hiring overseas drivers. Instead, the event became the third event of the newly formed Pirtek Enduro Cup, along with the series' other two-driver races, the Sandown 500 and the Bathurst 1000. The race format remained the same.

In the Sunday race of the 2013 event, David Reynolds took the first win of his V8 Supercars career, driving with Dean Canto. The 2015 event saw another debut win, this time for Jack Perkins, driving with James Courtney for the Holden Racing Team. It was Courtney's return to the sport following nine weeks out with rib and lung injuries suffered in an off-track injury at the Sydney Motorsport Park Super Sprint. In 2016, van Gisbergen won a race at the event for the third consecutive year, driving with French driver Alexandre Prémat, who in winning his first race in Supercars (as the series was now known), joined compatriot Bourdais as a winner at the event.

Winners

Events which were not championship rounds are indicated by a pink background.

By driver

Wins which did not count towards the championship season are indicated by a pink background.

By manufacturer

Endurance format (2009–present)

Since 2009, race wins, rather than round (or event) wins, are officially recognised.

International Driver (Dan Wheldon Memorial) Trophy

For the years that international co-drivers were mandated for the event, the International Driver Trophy was awarded to the best performing international driver over the race weekend. In 2011, the trophy was renamed after the British IndyCar and Indianapolis 500 champion Dan Wheldon after his death one week prior to the race. The trophy was discontinued after 2012 as a change in regulations saw that international co-drivers were no longer compulsory.

Event names