V8 Supercar Stats After Round 5 Canberra

[RaceTime]

Now that 5 rounds have been completed, 451 laps (or 1,595 km) have been raced in 12 races. 12 hours 4 mins and 11 secs have been spent in racing. Commodore have led 266 laps (59%) and Falcon 185 laps (41%).

389 competitors have faced the starters flag, but only 329 or 85% have actually finished.

Pole positions for the season so far have gone 7 to 2 Commodore to Falcon - Mark Skaife and Greg Murphy both having been on pole 3 times, Craig Lowndes twice and Ingall, Johnson, Ambrose and Radisisch each one. Bearing in mind that pole positions are set initially from qualifying and then from race results, poles purely from qualifying are quite different: Skaife twice with Murphy, Ambrose and Radisisch each once on pole.

The largest winning margin remains at 11.0990 seconds, however, Canberra saw the closest winning margin reduced to 0.2451 seconds.

Until Canberra, only one lap record had been broken in the series - Canberra changed all that with each of the three races seeing the lap record broken first by Lowndes (breaking his own record), then by Ambrose and, not to be outdone, Lowndes again in the final race. In all 34 drivers managed to set fastest laps in the 100 laps raced at Canberra.

Joining Phillip Island, this meeting saw all three races final fastest laps set by the same make of car - Falcon. At all other meetings both Holden and Falcon have shared this honour. Facon have set 9 fastest laps, while Holden only 3 - however this figure is reversed when it comes to converting these fastest laps to race wins - Commodore's 9 to Falcon's 3.

As well as now leading the Shell Championship Points Table, Mark Skaife has led 120 laps or 27% of the total laps raced. Craig Lowndes on 95 laps (21%), Jason Bright 53 (12%) and Russell Ingall 48 (11%) follow behind.

Canberra also saw 5 drivers lead an SCS event who have not been in the coveted Position 1 before - Steve Reed for 5, Paul Weel led for 4 laps, Mark Larkham 3 laps (for the first time in 2001), Paul Morris and Tyler Mecklam 1 lap each.

A total of 5 Safety Car periods covering 25 laps and 48 minutes 20 seconds of track time brought the total Safety Car figures for the series to 12 periods over 55 laps (12%) and 1 hour 42 min 33 secs (or 14% of actual time).

Drivers setting the number of fastest laps is now shared between Craig Lowndes with 4 and Marcus Ambrose with 3. Skaife, Bright, Seton, Kelly and Radisisch are the other drivers to have set fastest race laps.

Only two drivers have now completed every lap raced - Jason Bright and Russell Ingall. Stephen Johnson, Todd Kelly and Steve Ellery have all completed 448 racing laps while Mark Skaife (445), Steven Richards, Glenn Seton (both 444 laps) Larry Perkins (437) and Garth Tander (432) round out the top ten finishers to date.

All of these statistics can be viewed on line at http://www.racetime.com.au/stats/v8stats.htm