The Townsville 500 (formally known as the NTI Townsville 500) is an annual motor racing event for Supercars, held on the Reid Park Street Circuit in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. The event has been held since 2009.

The event was known as the Townsville 400, based on a 400 kilometre format, in ten of the first eleven years of the event. In 2021, the event returned to the 500 kilometre format first used in 2014, while in both 2020 and 2021, two Townsville events were held under the Townsville SuperSprint banner due to calendar changes and shorter races caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Format The event is staged over a three-day weekend, from Friday to Sunday. Two thirty-minute practice sessions are held on Friday, followed by a 100 kilometre race. Saturday features a fifteen-minute qualifying session which decides the grid positions, succeeded by a top ten shootout for the following 200 kilometre race. A fifteen-minute qualifying session is held on Sunday, succeeded by a top ten shootout, the combined results of which decide the grid for the following 200 km race.NTI Townsville 500 track schedule confirmed Supercars 6 June 2023

History The event was announced in late 2007, following the allocation of funding from both the federal and the Queensland state government. The event became the third Queensland event on the calendar, joining Queensland Raceway in Ipswich and the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit on the Gold Coast. However, Townsville did become the first major motor racing event to be held in the North Queensland region. The event is generally held in early July each year, which aligns with the school holidays of the Townsville State High School which borders the track.

Jamie Whincup won the first race on the circuit in 2009, a race which was later reduced by one lap after it was discovered it had extended beyond the time certain finish without being noticed. James Courtney won the Sunday race, his first victory for Dick Johnson Racing. Whincup would go on to win the Saturday race again in 2010 with Mark Winterbottom this time winning the second race. 2011 and 2012 saw four consecutive wins for Holden, with Whincup winning three more races at the circuit. In 2012, Formula One world champion Jacques Villeneuve commenced a three-event substitution for an injured Greg Murphy with a best finish of 24th. In 2013, Russell Ingall broke the all time championship event starts record at the event, while Will Davison hit the fence as part of his post-race victory celebrations in the first race of the weekend. In the Sunday race, the Holden Racing Team scored a one-two finish with Tander leading home Courtney. The team would repeat the one-two finish in the second Saturday race of the 500 kilometre 2014 event, with Tander winning from 11th on the grid in the one-off dual-race Saturday format.

Winterbottom won both races in 2015 to become the only driver other than Whincup, who achieved the feat in 2012, to achieve a clean sweep of the event. In the first ten years of the event, Whincup's record was unsurpassed, winning ten of the twenty-one races held at the track. Only Tander and Winterbottom (three each) and van Gisbergen (two) won multiple races at the circuit up to 2018. 2019 saw the first wet race in the event's history on the Sunday, beginning with Scott McLaughlin and David Reynolds clashing on Lap 1 which led to tensions between the drivers and teams involved extending for over a year. The race eventually saw van Gisbergen prevail after a chaotic race featuring several incidents and a pit lane fire at Brad Jones Racing.

The 2020 event was initially delayed to August due to the COVID-19 pandemic, before a second Townsville event was announced to be held one week later in early September. Both 2020 events, the only Queensland events on the final calendar, used a three-race sprint format under the Townsville SuperSprint event name. 2021 again saw a double-header as the impacts of COVID-19 in Australia persisted, with the first of the two a return to a 500 kilometre event distance last used in 2014. Triple Eight Race Engineering dominated the Townsville 500, leading all but one of the 176 laps, with van Gisbergen prevailing over Whincup in both races.

Winners Year Event title Driver Team Car 2009 Dunlop Townsville 400 1 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Ford FG Falcon 2 James Courtney Dick Johnson Racing Ford FG Falcon 2010 Sucrogen Townsville 400 1 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden VE Commodore 2 Mark Winterbottom Ford Performance Racing Ford FG Falcon 2011 Sucrogen Townsville 400 1 Garth Tander Holden Racing Team Holden VE Commodore 2 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden VE Commodore 2012 Sucrogen Townsville 400 1 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden VE Commodore 2 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden VE Commodore 2013 Sucrogen Townsville 400 1 Will Davison Ford Performance Racing Ford FG Falcon 2 Garth Tander Holden Racing Team Holden VF Commodore 2014 Castrol Townsville 500 –Driven by TAFE Queensland 1 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden VF Commodore 2 Garth Tander Holden Racing Team Holden VF Commodore 3 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden VF Commodore 2015 Castrol Edge Townsville 400 1 Mark Winterbottom Prodrive Racing Australia Ford FG X Falcon 2 Mark Winterbottom Prodrive Racing Australia Ford FG X Falcon 2016 Castrol Edge Townsville 400 1 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden VF Commodore 2 Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden VF Commodore 2017 Watpac Townsville 400 1 Scott McLaughlin DJR Team Penske Ford FG X Falcon 2 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden VF Commodore 2018 Watpac Townsville 400 1 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 2 Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 2019 Watpac Townsville 400 1 Scott McLaughlin DJR Team Penske Ford Mustang GT 2 Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 2020 NTI Townsville SuperSprint 1 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 2 Jamie Whincup Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 3 Scott McLaughlin DJR Team Penske Ford Mustang GT Robson Civil Projects Townsville SuperSprint 1 Scott McLaughlin DJR Team Penske Ford Mustang GT 2 Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 3 Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 2021 NTI Townsville 500 1 Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 2 Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore WD-40 Townsville SuperSprint 1 Cam Waters Tickford Racing Ford Mustang GT 2 Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 3 Cam Waters Tickford Racing Ford Mustang GT 2022 NTI Townsville 500 1 Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 2 Shane van Gisbergen Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden ZB Commodore 2023 NTI Townsville 500 1 Will Brown Erebus Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro ZL1-1LE 2 Anton De Pasquale Dick Johnson Racing Ford Mustang GT 2024 NTI Townsville 500 1 Cam Waters Tickford Racing Ford Mustang GT 2 Matthew Payne Grove Racing Ford Mustang GT 2025 NTI Townsville 500 1 Brodie Kostecki Dick Johnson Racing Ford Mustang GT 2 Broc Feeney Triple Eight Race Engineering Chevrolet Camaro ZL1-1LE 3 Broc Feeney Triple Eight Race Engineering Chevrolet Camaro ZL1-1LE 2026 NTI Townsville 500 1 Cam Waters Tickford Racing Ford Mustang GT 2 Matthew Payne Grove Racing Ford Mustang GT 3 Brodie Kostecki Dick Johnson Racing Ford Mustang GT Notes – In 2020 and 2021, Townsville hosted two consecutive rounds of the Supercars Championship.

Multiple winners By driver Race WinsDriver12 Jamie Whincup10 Shane van Gisbergen4 Scott McLaughlin Cam Waters3 Garth Tander Mark Winterbottom2 Broc Feeney Matthew Payne Brodie Kostecki1 James Courtney Will Davison Will Brown Anton De Pasquale

By team Race WinsTeam24Triple Eight Race Engineering8Tickford RacingDick Johnson Racing3Holden Racing Team2Grove Racing1Erebus Motorsport

By manufacturer Race WinsManufacturer24Holden19Ford3Chevrolet

Notes – Tickford Racing was known as Ford Performance Racing from 2003 to 2014 and as Prodrive Racing Australia from 2015 to 2017, hence their statistics are combined. – Dick Johnson Racing was known as DJR Team Penske from 2015 to 2020, hence their statistics are combined.

Event names and sponsors 2009: Dunlop Townsville 400 2010–13: Sucrogen Townsville 400 2014: Castrol Townsville 500 – Driven by TAFE Queensland 2015–16: Castrol Edge Townsville 400 2017–19: Watpac Townsville 400 2020: NTI Townsville SuperSprint 2020: Robson Civil Projects Townsville SuperSprint 2021–present: NTI Townsville 500 2021: WD-40 Townsville SuperSprint

See also List of Australian Touring Car Championship races

References