Homebush Street Circuit

Homebush Street Circuit

Olympic Park
Location	Sydney Olympic Park, New South Wales
Time zone	Greenwich Mean Time +10
Coordinates	33°50′41″S 151°3′58″E / 33.84472°S 151.06611°E / -33.84472; 151.06611Coordinates: 33°50′41″S 151°3′58″E / 33.84472°S 151.06611°E / -33.84472; 151.06611
Opened	4 December 2009
Major events	V8 Supercars
Length	3.5 km (2.2 mi)
Turns	10
Lap record	1:28.3839 (Craig Lowndes, Triple Eight Holden VE Commodore, 2011, V8 Supercars)

The Homebush Street Circuit is a temporary street circuit around the former Olympic precinct at Sydney Olympic Park, Sydney, New South Wales. The track was used for the first time at the final round of the 2009 V8 Supercar Championship Series, the inaugural Sydney 500.^[1]

The circuit

The circuit was designed by Mark Skaife. He focused on creating a difficult track with a variety of bumps, camber changes and fast and slow corners making it difficult to complete the perfect lap.^[2] It was constructed on Australia Avenue, Kevin Coombs Avenue, Edwin Flack Avenue and Dawn Fraser Avenue. 140 mature trees needed to be removed and kilometres of tarmac needed to be torn up to accommodate the race.^[3] Overall the track has a mixture of track surfaces.^[2]

V8 Supercar driver Jason Richards suggested that there are many braking areas, difficult corners and passing spots.^[4] The main straight is the single widest section of race track in Australia, while the straight along Edwin Flack Avenue is one of the narrowest. The outside of turn eight has an unusual negative camber that caught many drivers out in the inaugural race, resting in several cars crashing into the outer barriers. The first race was won by Toll Holden Racing Team's Garth Tander from pole position while, the second 250 km race was won by Dick Johnson Racing's James Courtney (who started from second position on the grid). Jamie Whincup secured winning the 2009 V8 Supercar Championship Series after finishing fifth in race 1 and fourteenth in race 2.

The circuit has been described as the most unpredictable on the calendar as nine different drivers have won the ten races held since 2009, with Craig Lowndes being the only multiple winner. It also has had the lowest percentage of finishers out of cars started in the four year running of the event with 68% of cars making it through to the finish, as compared to 77% at the Gold Coast (run since 1994), 88% at Adelaide (run since 1999) and 90% at Townsville (run since 2009).^[5]

Lap records

As of 8 December 2013.^[6]

Class	Driver	Vehicle	Time	Date
Outright	Craig Lowndes	Holden VE Commodore	1:28.3839	4 December 2011
Sports Cars
Australian GT	Bernd Schneider	Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3	1:28.6368	2 December 2012
Carrera Cup	Jonny Reid	Porsche 997 GT3 Cup	1:30.2244	4 December 2011
Aussie Racing Cars	Paul Kemal	Falcon-Yamaha	1:43.4054	4 December 2011
Touring Cars
V8 Supercar	Craig Lowndes	Holden VE Commodore	1:28.3839	4 December 2011
Dunlop V8 Supercar Series	Nick Percat	Holden VE Commodore	1:29.2159	2 December 2012
V8 Utes	Cameron McConville	Holden VE Ute SS	1:45.5326	2 December 2012
Australian Mini Challenge	Chris Alajajian	Mini JCW R56	1:46.2661	5 December 2010
Historic Touring Cars
Touring Car Masters	Glenn Seton	Ford XB Falcon	1:38.3154	4 December 2011
Racing Cars
Formula Ford	Anton De Pasquale	Mygale SJ13a-Ford	1:34.1651	8 December 2013

References

External links

• Official Telstra Sydney 500 Grand Finale Website