Venue Queensland Raceway First held 1999 Distance 120 km | Number of times held 16 Laps 39 Laps 65 | |
 | ||
The Ipswich SuperSprint (formally known as the Coates Hire Ipswich SuperSprint) is an annual motor racing event for Supercars, held at Queensland Raceway near Ipswich, Queensland. The event has been a regular part of the Supercars Championship—and its previous incarnations, the Shell Championship Series and V8 Supercars Championship—since 1999. The circuit held two championship rounds in 1999 and 2000, the other being the Queensland 500 endurance race, before the sprint event was dropped for 2001 and 2002. It returned for 2003 when the Queensland 500 was discontinued and has been a part of the calendar ever since.
Contents
Format
The event is staged over a three-day weekend, from Friday to Sunday. Two one-hour practice sessions are held on Friday while a fifteen-minute practice session is held on Saturday. Friday also features a thirty-minute practice session exclusively for additional drivers, mostly co-drivers from the Enduro Cup. Saturday features a fifteen-minute qualifying session which decides the grid positions for the following 120 kilometre race. A single twenty-minute qualifying session is held on Sunday to decide the grid for the following 200 km race.
History
Queensland Raceway opened in 1999 and hosted its first Supercars event that same year, taking over from Lakeside Raceway as the home of the series' Queensland event. Garth Tander scored his first round win despite not winning a race during the weekend. He was originally declared the winner of the third race when John Bowe was disqualified for passing under a yellow flag, but Bowe was later reinstated in the results. The event was dropped from the calendar for 2001 with circuit hosting only the Queensland 500 endurance race.
The 500-kilometre Supercars endurance race returned to Sandown Raceway in 2003 and Queensland Raceway returned to hosting a sprint round of the championship. Jason Richards had a major accident during the 2005 event, after a touch from Paul Morris sent Richards' car over a kerb and into a series of rollovers. Garth Tander dominated the event in 2006 and 2007, winning five of the six races across the two years, before Mark Winterbottom won consecutive events in 2008 and 2009.
Craig Lowndes won five consecutive races at the event across 2011 and 2012, while Chaz Mostert won his first championship race during the 2013 event.