Category Touring car racing Inaugural season 2000 Teams 15 | Country Australia Drivers 28 Constructors 3 | |
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The Dunlop Super2 Series (formerly known as Dunlop Series) is an Australian touring car racing competition, specifically the second tier series for Supercars competitors. Competing vehicles are older than those utilised in the Supercars Championship series and are run by smaller teams with lower budgets. Approximately half the teams are for 'gentleman racers', while some team owners will put a young emerging driver into the car and team they own. The series runs half the number of events that the Supercars Championship runs.
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The series was first held in 2000 as the 2000 Konica V8 Lites Series and this inaugural contest was won by Dean Canto. Towards the end of the season Stone Brothers Racing entered a car for David Besnard as preparation for the long distance races, in the main V8 Supercar series, the Queensland 500 and the Bathurst 1000, which unlike the other races require two drivers for each competing vehicle. Since then main series teams have used the series to help get their endurance co-drivers up-to-speed, or have employed drivers competing for other Fujitsu Series teams. While originally Fujitsu Series teams were allowed to enter main series events, this has since been discontinued as all main series events are limited to those teams carrying valid franchise slots for the main series, although in limited circumstances Fujitsu series teams have been able to lease entries from main series teams.
The 2007 champion, Tony D'Alberto, drove for the Tony D'Alberto Racing team, and like many of his predecessors, graduated to the V8 Supercar series in 2008, again with the family team.
For the 2009 series onward there will be no stand alone Fujitsu Series events, instead the whole series will be a support series for the top tier V8 Supercar Championship Series.
This series carries the colloquial title of 'Development Series' which was the name given to the series by V8 Supercar Australia between the 2004 and 2005 seasons. The colloquial title is referred to in many conversations, even though there has never been a Development Series race because a naming rights sponsor was found before the start of the 2005 season.