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V8 Supercars Australia awards five championships Level One and Level Two for Drivers, Manufacturers Championship and Level One Teams Championship and Level Two Privateers Team Championship.
The Level One Australian Touring Car Championship now known as the V8 Supercar Championship Series caters for the 31 fully professional cars run by the 14 two-car and 3 one-car well-sponsored V8 Supercar teams. The series is commercially successful and highly competitive, with races all over Australia, one in New Zealand, and in 2006, the first race in Bahrain. Tracks range from street circuits (such as the Adelaide circuit) to more permanent road courses (such as the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit). The largest single event is the Bathurst 1000.
The racing is very close and aggressive between all the V8 Championship Series teams, with usually less than a second separating the top 25 cars. Teams design and construct their own cars and engines (Some teams opt to buy engines from stronger teams, e.g. SBR, 888, BJR and PCR use SBR developed Ford V8's, while HRT, HSVDT and Perkins Engineering use HMS developed Holden V8's while the rest of the Holden teams use their own developed Holden V8's) leading to minor/major (depending on teams) engineering differences among teams despite the cars being the same make.
Both Ford and Holden provide significant, though varying, levels of sponsorship to the majority of teams that run their cars. From 1996 to 2002, V8 Supercars Holden Racing Team, had a decisive competitive edge over most of the opposition. More recently, the sport has seen the return to prominence of Ford through Marcos Ambrose and Stone Brothers Racing, winning in 2003 and 2004, as well as team-mate Russell Ingall who kept the title at SBR, winning a tight series in 2005
V8 Supercars is Australia's third largest sport behind AFL Football and Horse racing.[ citation needed ]
The first Australian Touring Car Championship under the V8 Supercar rules was won by Glenn Seton with his team-mate former Formula One world champion Alan Jones taking second in the championship.
In 2005, the "Team's Championship" was created by simply adding together the points of the team's drivers. Stone Brothers Racing won the inaugural title in 2005 with Russell Ingall (1st in Series) and Marcos Ambrose (3rd) combining for a winning 3778 point haul. In 2006, the Toll HSV Dealer Team won, with Rick Kelly winning the championship, and Garth Tander in fourth place.
Each year (since 2004), supremacy between Ford and Holden has been decided by the Manufacturers Championship. [1] Out of thirteen rounds, seven wins from drivers of one manufacturer are required to win. In 2004, Holden won 7-6, but for the last two seasons, Ford have won by the same 7-6 score line.
The privateers were split from the main series in the year 2000. Their Level Two series is now officially known as the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series (although occasionally known as the V8 Supercar Development Series) and runs identical specification V8 Supercars, apart from differences with engine management systems and older chassis'.
The Development series has been such a success that it itself has also fielded full grids up to 34 cars on many occasions. Although as of 2009 numbers have dipped to less than half that number.
Both young up-and-coming drivers hoping to break into a Level One drive, and privateer hobby racers, race in the Level Two category.
A third-tier competition, not directly associated with V8 Supercar, the V8 Touring Car National Series sprang up in 2008 for deregistered cars from both v8 Supercar series.
Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition with heavily modified road-going cars. It is popular in Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Denmark. It has both similarities to and significant differences from stock car racing, which is popular in the United States.
The Supercars Championship is a touring car racing category in Australia, running as an International Series under Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) regulations, governing the jocular racing.
The Bathurst 1000 is a 1,000-kilometre (621.4 mi) touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supercars Championship, the most recent incarnation of the Australian Touring Car Championship. In 1987 it was a round of the World Touring Car Championship.
The Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) is a touring car racing award held in Australia since 1960. The series itself is no longer contested, but the title lives on, with the winner of the Repco Supercars Championship awarded the trophy and title of Australian Touring Car Champion.
Russell Ingall is a former full-time Australian V8 Supercar driver. He won his V8 Supercars title in 2005, and finished second in 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2004. Ingall has also won the Bathurst 1000, in 1995 and 1997. His particular driving style earned him the nickname "Enforcer".
Jason Bright is a retired Australian racing driver who competed in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship. He drove the No. 56 Ford FG X Falcon for Britek Motorsport, a satellite team of Prodrive Racing Australia, before retiring from full-time racing at the end of the 2017.
Bradley Jones also known as Brad is a retired Australian racing driver. Jones now acts as team co-principal with his brother Kim in the V8 Supercar racing team, Brad Jones Racing.
Stone Brothers Racing (SBR) was an Australian motor racing team that competed in the International V8 Supercars Championship between 1998 and 2012. The team was formed in 1998 when Ross and Jim Stone bought Alan Jones's shares in Alan Jones Racing and renamed it Stone Brothers Racing.
Perkins Engineering was a team contesting the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series, operating as an active racing team between 1986 and 2008. From 2009 onwards, the involvement of Perkins Engineering in the championship was wound back into a supply relationship with the newly formed Kelly Racing.
The 2001 Shell Championship Series was an auto racing series for V8 Supercars. The championship, which was the third Shell Championship Series, began on 25 March 2001 at Phillip Island and ended on 2 December at Sandown after 13 rounds. The same events also determined the winner of the 2001 Australian Touring Car Championship as awarded by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport.
Anthony Lawrence Longhurst is an Australian racing driver and former Australian Champion water skier. He is most noted for his career in the Australian Touring Car Championship and V8 Supercar series. Longhurst is a two-time winner of the Bathurst 1000, winning the event in 1988 with Tomas Mezera and in 2001 with Mark Skaife, and is one of only four drivers to win Bathurst in both a Ford and a Holden.
The 1999 FAI 1000 was an endurance race for V8 Supercars. The event was held on 14 November 1999 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia and was the thirteenth and final round of the 1999 Shell Championship Series. It was the first year that the traditional spring endurance race at Bathurst was part of the Australian Touring Car Championship.
The 2003 V8 Supercar season was the 44th year of touring car racing in Australia since the first runnings of the Australian Touring Car Championship and the fore-runner of the present day Bathurst 1000, the Armstrong 500.
The 2008 V8 Supercar Championship Series was the tenth V8 Supercar Championship Series and the twelfth series in which V8 Supercars contested the premier Australian touring car title. The championship began on 21 February at the Clipsal 500 on the streets of Adelaide and concluded on 7 December at Oran Park Raceway. It consisted of 14 rounds covering all states and the Northern Territory of Australia as well as rounds in New Zealand and Bahrain.
The 2009 V8 Supercar season was the thirteenth season in which V8 Supercars contested the premier Australian motor racing series for touring cars. It was the 50th season of touring car racing in Australia from the first Australian Touring Car Championship, latter to become the V8 Supercar Championship Series, and the first Armstrong 500, which would evolve into the Bathurst 1000.
The 2003 V8 Supercar Championship Series was a motor racing series for V8 Supercars. The series, which was the fifth V8 Supercar Championship Series, began on 22 March 2003 in Adelaide and ended on 30 November at Eastern Creek Raceway after 13 rounds. It ended with the awarding of the 44th Australian Touring Car Championship title by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport to Tasmanian driver Marcos Ambrose. It was the first time a Stone Brothers Racing driver had won the championship and marked the first title win by a Ford driver since Glenn Seton in 1997, ending a five-year run by Holden Racing Team drivers.
The 2009 V8 Supercar Championship Series was the eleventh V8 Supercar Championship Series and the thirteenth series in which V8 Supercars have contested the premier Australian touring car title. It began on 19 March at the Clipsal 500 on the streets of Adelaide and ended on 6 December at the Homebush Street Circuit and consisted of 26 races over 14 events which were held in all states and the Northern Territory of Australia as well as New Zealand. The 50th Australian Touring Car Championship title was awarded to the winner of the series by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport.
The 2010 V8 Supercar Championship Series was an FIA sanctioned international motor racing series for V8 Supercars. It was the twelfth V8 Supercar Championship Series and the fourteenth series in which V8 Supercars have contested the premier Australian touring car title. The championship began on 19 February in the Middle East at Abu Dhabi's Yas Marina Circuit and concluded on 5 December at the Homebush Street Circuit. These events were held in all states of Australia and in the Northern Territory as well as in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and New Zealand. The 51st Australian Touring Car Championship title was awarded to the winner of the Drivers Championship by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport.
The 2013 International V8 Supercars Championship was a Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile-sanctioned international motor racing series for V8 Supercars that was based in Australia. It was the fifteenth running of the V8 Supercar Championship Series and the seventeenth series in which V8 Supercars contested the premier Australian touring car title. The championship was contested over thirty-six races, starting with the Clipsal 500 Adelaide on 2 March 2013, and finishing with the Sydney 500 on 8 December. The series' calendar also expanded, travelling to the United States for the first time for a race at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
The Sydney SuperNight is an annual motor racing event for Supercars, held at Sydney Motorsport Park in Eastern Creek, New South Wales. The event has been a semi-regular part of the Supercars Championship—and its previous incarnations, the Australian Touring Car Championship, Shell Championship Series and V8 Supercars Championship—since 1992. Since 2018, this is the only active Supercars event held in metropolitan Sydney.