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 edition of the event. It occurred 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, building a six-and-a-half-second advantage that was reduced to nothing when the safety car was deployed for debris retrieval. He held off Jonathon Webb for the rest of Race 22 to win for the 60th time in his career.
For Race 23, Whincup took his second consecutive pole position with the fastest lap time of qualifying. His co-driver Bourdais led the first 36 laps from Marc Lieb in second and Will Power in third before his first green flag pit stop for fuel, tyres and was relieved by Whincup. Salo led for the next 20 laps until his own stop and his car was driven by Davison. Tim Slade led the field after a safety car period for debris retrieval and he held it until Davison overtook him for the lead on the 80th lap. Davison maintained the lead for the remainder of the race to take his 13th career victory after holding off Whincup in the final five laps.
Whincup increased his Drivers' Championship lead with 3,060 points and Mark Winterbottom moved from third to second with 2,842 points. Craig Lowndes fell to third with 2,812 points and Will Davison's victory in Race 23 maintained him fourth with 2,503 points. In the Teams' Championship, Triple Eight Race Engineering led with 5,900 points over Ford Performance Racing in second with 5,285 points. Stone Brothers Racing and Holden Brothers Racing kept third and fourth with three rounds left in the season.
Background
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 edition of the event. It took place on the weekend of the 19–21 October 2012 at the nine-turn temporary Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in Surfers Paradise, Queensland. The 2011 race saw the electronic detection sensors disabled and chicane bollards dismantled to allow drivers to cut those corners after claims of inconsistent decisions, causing the size of those kerbs to be enlarged to address the issue for the 2012 edition. Teams were informed via e-mail that a driver observed cutting the turns would get 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 were entered in the race. Each car was driven by a full-time International V8 Supercar Championship driver, 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 Greg Ritter). 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, which required surgery. His car was driven by Tim Blanchard for the rest 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 was aware that an error from Whincup or his international co-driver in the Gold Coast could effect the title. 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 demotivated due to burnout, he said that he wanted to race cleanly for the weekend and felt he would be motivated to win the race.
Race 22 Practice
A total of four 40-minute practice sessions were held on 19 October, with the second and third sessions restricted to the international co-drivers. The first morning session and the fourth session held in the late afternoon were open to all drivers. Davison lapped fastest in the first practice session at 1:12.0639, followed by Ritter, Winterbottom, Lowndes, Courtney, Rick Kelly, Holdsworth, Michael Caruso, Tony D'Alberto and Steve Owen. Ten minutes in, Taz Douglas prompted the session's first stoppage as he struck the turn 2 apex kerb and damaged his Holden Commodore VE2's left-hand side in a collision with the exit concrete wall. David Reynolds removed his car's left-hand side doors as a result of a sudden oversteer putting him into a barrier leaving the same corner and necessitating a second stoppage. The first of the international co-driver sessions was led by Marc Lieb with a lap of 1:13.0563 set in the final five minutes. Simon Pagenaud, Bourdais, Nick Heidfeld, Ryan Briscoe, Vitantonio Liuzzi, James Hinchcliffe, Turner, David Brabham and Stéphane Sarrazin made up positions two through ten. While the session passed without a major incident, Lucas di Grassi and Justin Wilson ventured onto the turn 11 escape road and Jamie Campbell-Walter went straight into the tyre barrier leaving the final hairpin.
Lieb again was fastest of all the international co-drivers with a 1:12.4763 time on his final lap of the third practice session. Briscoe, Pagenaud, Sarrazin, Richard Lyons, Brabham, Mika Salo, Bourdais, di Grassi and Heidfeld followed in the top ten. During the session, more drivers ventured onto the track's escape roads, and three drivers had crashes. Peter Dumbreck glanced the turn 14 exit barrier and Boris Said lightly touched the tyre barrier with his right-front corner at the exit to turn 9 after a suspected power steering failure. Said's teammate Kox made contact with the turn 14 wall and brought out the session's only red flag. In the final practice session, Caruso recorded the day's fastest lap time, a 1:11.6912, with 16 minutes left. Winterbottom, Reynolds, D'Alberto, Davison, Tim Slade, Moffat, Courtney and Lowndes made up positions two through ten. Garth Tander caused the session's sole stoppage when he locked a front wheel and broke his car's left-front suspension over the two kerbs. Jonathon Webb also broke his suspension at the same corner and abandoned his car at the side of the circuit two turns later.
After practice, several drivers including Winterbottom and Brabham called for the sensors on the kerbs to be removed because they argued that the presence of the higher kerb made them redundant, "What happens in the drivers' briefing is we all push for things but we don't always get what we are pushing for. There is a lot of outside influence in our sport from certain people who push for something else and shouldn't really be offering their opinion." Winterbottom stated. Courtney expressed his concern that the kerbing would cause tyres to delaminate that was observed in the 2011 event. The sensors were switched off before the first qualifying session on Friday night.
Qualifying and top ten shootout Qualifying for Race 22 took place on Saturday morning and consisted of a half an hour session followed by an identically timed top ten shootout for the fastest ten qualifiers. Davison lapped fastest in the qualifying session at 1:11.3620. Whincup took second on his final lap of the session with Winterbottom third and Kelly fourth. Webb, Courtney, Caruso, d'Alberto, van Gisbergen and Fabian Coulthard were the final five drivers who advanced to the top ten shootout. Two red flags were necessitated for debris on the track and the third was needed to retrieve Moffat's car which stopped at turn 11 with a tailshaft failure. Tander ended his session early with a collision with the rear of David Wall's vehicle.
The top ten shootout had each of the ten fastest drivers from the qualifying session complete one fast lap each, in reverse order of their qualifying positions. Whincup took his fifth pole position of the season with a lap of 1:11.6478. He was joined on the grid's front row by Davison whose time was 0.2252 seconds slower. Kelly qualified third, Caruso fourth and Webb fifth. Sixth-placed Winterbottom's lap was disrupted by the event's broadcaster Seven Network broadcasting on his radio by accident and believed that his race engineer Campbell Little was trying to provide him with information before being informed that it was the commentary team. Coulthard, seventh, made contact with a wall. D'Alberto qualified eighth. Courtney in ninth had significant rear-brake locking and glanced the turn 11 barrier. Van Gisbergen in tenth lost time when an error put him onto the turn 11 escape road. Behind him, the rest of the grid lined up as Slade, Reynolds, Lowndes, Owen, Russell Ingall, Holdsworth, Moffat, Steven Johnson, Michael Patrizi, Ritter, Jason Bright, Greg Murphy, Karl Reindler, Tander, Blanchard, Douglas, Fiore and Wall. Qualifying – Race 22