page_title: 2012 Armor All Gold Coast 600
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: 2012 Armor All Gold Coast 600 / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: V8 Supercar driver Tim Blanchard
context_page_description: The 2012 Armor All Gold Coast 600 was a touring car motor race for V8 Supercars. It was the Round 12 of the 2012 International V8 Supercars Championship and the 22nd year running of the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit race. It took place from 19 to 21 October at the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit on the Gold Coast, Queensland. Race 22 was won by Triple Eight Race Engineering's Jamie Whincup and Sébastien Bourdais from pole position. Will Davison and Mika Salo of Ford Performance Racing won the following day's second race from fourth place.
  Whincup took the pole position by posting the fastest lap in the top ten shootout but lost his lead to Salo at the start which was twice red flagged for a total of 50 minutes because of two separate start-line crashes that reduced the distance of the race from 102 to 79 laps. Bourdais challenged Salo over laps 23 and 32 but he could not overtake Salo on both occasions as the latter struggled with acceleration. Whincup later relieved Bourdais and retook the lead to build up a six-and-a-half second advantage that was reduced to nothing when the safety car was deployed for debris retrieval.
context_section_description: The 2012 Armor All Gold Coast 600 was the 12th of the 15 touring car rounds of the Australian sedan-based V8 Supercars Championship, the third and final endurance round of the 2012 season, and the 22nd anniversary running of the event. It took place on the weekend of the 19–21 October 2012 at the nine-turn 2.96 km (1.84 mi) temporary Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in Surfers Paradise, Queensland. Following the 2011 finish where electronic detection sensors were disabled and chicane bollards were dismantled to allow drivers to cut those corners after claims of inconsistent decisions, the size of those kerbs were enlarged to address the issue. Teams were informed via e-mail that a driver observed cutting the turns would be imposed a pit lane drive-through or a minimum 50 point penalty.
  After winning the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 with co-driver Paul Dumbrell two weeks earlier, Triple Eight Race Engineering driver Jamie Whincup led the Drivers' Championship with 2,772 points. His teammate Craig Lowndes was 161 points behind in second and Ford Performance Racing's Mark Winterbottom was third with 2,584 points. Winterbottom's teammate Will Davison was fourth with 2,302 points and Shane van Gisbergen of Stone Brothers Racing was fifth with 2,020 points. In the Teams' Championship, Triple Eight Race Engineering led with 5,408 points; Ford Performance Racing was second with 4,886 points. Stone Brothers Racing and Holden Racing Team battled for third and Brad Jones Racing was in fifth place. Whincup and his international co-driver Sébastien Bourdais were the round's defending winners from 2011.
  All 28 cars which contested the regular V8 Supercar season took part in the race. Each car was driven by its regular driver, who contests the full International V8 Supercar Championship, and a mandatory international guest driver who took part in a separate racing series. These guest drivers were recruited from a variety of racing categories, including the IndyCar Series (such as Will Power, partnering Winterbottom and Bourdais again joining Whincup), the World Endurance Championship (such as Darren Turner, partnering James Courtney), the FIA GT1 World Championship (such as Peter Kox, partnering James Moffat), the International Superstars Series (such as Gianni Morbidelli joining Dean Fiore), and the Rolex Sports Car Series (such as Ricky Taylor partnering Lee Holdsworth). Each international driver was required to complete a minimum of 34 laps out of the scheduled 102 in both races. There were two driver changes for the race. Todd Kelly was deemed unfit to compete in the remainder of the season due to a shoulder injury he picked up at a training camp that required surgery. His car was driven by Tim Blanchard for the remainder of the season starting from the Gold Coast 600. Garry Rogers Motorsport replaced its regular driver Alexandre Prémat with Greg Ritter at the Gold Coast.
  At the Bathurst 1000, a poor race from Winterbottom dropped him from second to third in the points standings. Afterwards he admitted his chances of becoming the Drivers' Champion was "on life support" but he was aware that an error from Whincup or his international co-driver in the Gold Coast could impact the title chase. Lowndes's third-place at Bathurst moved him to second in the standings. He spoke of his certainty that Ford Performance Racing would improve, "No doubt FPR would be disappointed. They had two strong cars and one on pole and they didn't get a result. If TeamVodafone were in that position, it'd really annoy us. The championship's far from a foregone conclusion and both Will and Frosty will bounce back very strong." Whincup, the pre-race favourite, argued that Winterbottom and Davison should not be ruled out of the title fight and said he felt they would be a threat at the Gold Coast. Nevertheless, despite feeling not as motivated to win due to burnout, he said that he wanted to race cleanly for the weekend and felt his motivation to win would be there for the race.
caption: Tim Blanchard (pictured in 2013) replaced the injured Todd Kelly for the remainder of the season.
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