Sandown SuperSprint

The event was staged over a three-day weekend, from Friday to Sunday. Three thirty-minute practice sessions were held, two on Friday, one of them was a co-driver session, and one on Saturday. Saturday featured a three-part qualifying session which decides the grid positions for the following 110 kilometre race. Two separated ten-minute qualifying sessions were held on Sunday, which decided the grid for the following 110 km races.[2]

Opened in 1962, Sandown Raceway has traditionally been known as the host of endurance races, the first of which was held in 1964, an event which later evolved into the Sandown 500 event. As well as this, Sandown has a long history of hosting sprint rounds of the championship with the circuit hosting the most rounds in championship history.[3] Sandown held its first championship sprint round in 1965, as the only event of the 1965 Australian Touring Car Championship. The race was won by Norm Beechey, who won by over a lap despite starting from towards the back of the grid after mechanical problems in qualifying.[4] Sandown would not hold another championship event until 1970, when the series had expanded to seven rounds.[3]

Since then, in various forms and with the exception of 1975, 1990 and 1993, Sandown has been included in every running of the Australian Touring Car Championship, which later became known as V8 Supercars. From 1972 to 1974, Allan Moffat won three consecutive event wins at the circuit, while in 1976 and 1977 Sandown hosted both a sprint round and the Sandown 500 as part of each championship. In 1978, five-time champion Ian Geoghegan won his last championship round in a Bob Jane Racing entry. Throughout the 1980s, Dick Johnson tied Moffat as the most successful driver at the event with four wins. Dick Jonhson's eponymous team won three further events in 1992, 2000 and 2010. In 2000, Steven Ellery won his only career race at the event.[5] The 2001 and 2002 events were the final events of each championship, however in both years the championship had already been decided by the time of the Sandown round. In 2001, Todd Kelly scored his first championship round win. In 2002, Marcos Ambrose gave the Ford AU Falcon a round win in the last event of its largely unsuccessful era as the pre-eminent Ford model.

Meanwhile, in 1999 the annual 500 kilometre endurance race left Sandown and moved to Queensland Raceway, with the endurance events also joining the championship calendar for the first time since 1977. With the 500 kilometre endurance race and the Bathurst 1000 now regular fixtures of the championship, when the Sandown 500 returned to the calendar from 2003 to 2007, the sprint round became obsolete. The sprint round then returned from 2008 to 2011 in the period in which the Phillip Island 500 replaced Sandown's endurance race. In the final sprint round to date in 2011, Will Davison won the round despite only finishing fourth and third in a rain-affected weekend.[6]

In 2020, the 500 was again scheduled to be moved, this time to The Bend Motorsport Park, which itself was not held due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this, Sandown was initially scheduled to host its first sprint event since 2011, but the event was also later cancelled altogether due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[7] Sandown was initially given reserve status on the 2021 calendar, and was then scheduled to replace the Melbourne 400 after the postponement of the 2021 Australian Grand Prix.[8][1] Shane van Gisbergen won all three races, including the first from 17th on the grid, only two weeks after breaking his collarbone in a mountain biking accident.[9]

Year	Driver[3]	Team	Car	Report
1965	Norm Beechey	Neptune Racing Team	Ford Mustang	Report
1966 – 1969	not held
1970	Norm Beechey	Beechey Shell Racing Team	Holden Monaro HT GTS350
1971	Bob Jane	Bob Jane Racing	Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1
1972	Allan Moffat	Allan Moffat Racing	Ford Boss 302 Mustang
1973	Allan Moffat	Ford Works Team	Ford XY Falcon GTHO Phase III
1974	Allan Moffat	Allan Moffat Racing	Ford XA Falcon GT Hardtop
1975	event cancelled
19761	Colin Bond	Holden Dealer Team	Holden LH Torana SL/R 5000 L34
19771	Allan Moffat	Allan Moffat Racing	Ford XB Falcon GT
1978	Ian Geoghegan	Bob Jane Racing	Holden LX Torana A9X
1979	Bob Morris	Ron Hodgson Motors	Holden LX Torana SS 5000 A9X
1980	Kevin Bartlett	Nine Network Racing Team	Chevrolet Camaro Z28
1981	Dick Johnson	Dick Johnson Racing	Ford XD Falcon
1982	Dick Johnson	Dick Johnson Racing	Ford XD Falcon
1983	Allan Grice	Roadways Racing	Holden VH Commodore SS
1984	Peter Brock	Holden Dealer Team	Holden VH Commodore SS
1985	Peter Brock	Holden Dealer Team	Holden VK Commodore
1986	George Fury	Gibson Motorsport	Nissan Skyline DR30 RS
1987	Glenn Seton	Gibson Motorsport	Nissan Skyline DR30 RS
1988	Dick Johnson	Dick Johnson Racing	Ford Sierra RS500
1989	Dick Johnson	Dick Johnson Racing	Ford Sierra RS500
1990	not held
1991	Jim Richards	Gibson Motorsport	Nissan Skyline BNR32 GT-R
1992	John Bowe	Dick Johnson Racing	Ford Sierra RS500
1993	not held
1994	Mark Skaife	Gibson Motorsport	Holden VP Commodore	Report
1995	Larry Perkins	Perkins Engineering	Holden VR Commodore	Report
1996	Craig Lowndes	Holden Racing Team	Holden VR Commodore
1997	Glenn Seton	Glenn Seton Racing	Ford EL Falcon
1998	Craig Lowndes	Holden Racing Team	Holden VS Commodore
1999	Mark Skaife	Holden Racing Team	Holden VT Commodore	Report
2000	Paul Radisich	Dick Johnson Racing	Ford AU Falcon
2001	Todd Kelly	Kmart Racing Team	Holden VX Commodore	Report
2002	Marcos Ambrose	Stone Brothers Racing	Ford AU Falcon
2003 – 2007	not held 2
2008	Jamie Whincup	Triple Eight Race Engineering	Ford BF Falcon	Report
2009	Will Davison	Holden Racing Team	Holden VE Commodore	Report
2010	James Courtney	Dick Johnson Racing	Ford FG Falcon
2011	Will Davison	Ford Performance Racing	Ford FG Falcon
2012 – 2019	not held 2
2020	not held due to COVID-19 pandemic
2021	Shane van Gisbergen	Triple Eight Race Engineering	Holden ZB Commodore
2022	Shane van Gisbergen	Triple Eight Race Engineering	Holden ZB Commodore

Notes

• ^1 – In 1976 and 1977, Sandown Raceway also hosted a second championship round, the Hang Ten 400.
• ^2 – From 2003 to 2007 and from 2012 to 2019, Sandown Raceway hosted the Sandown 500 as a championship round.

• 1965, 1972–74, 1976–82, 1984, 1987–89, 1991–92, 1994–2001: Sandown
• 1970: Sterling Southern 60
• 1971: Marlboro Southern Sixty
• 1983: International Motor Show Trophy
• 1985: Pye Audio Round 2
• 1986: Castrol Challenge
• 2002: Betta Electrical V8 Ultimate
• 2008: Midas 400
• 2009–11: Norton 360 Sandown Challenge
• 2021–22: Penrite Oil Sandown SuperSprint

• List of Australian Touring Car Championship races