Five closest finishes in Adelaide 500 history

THIS year the event celebrates its 25th anniversary in November.^th anniversary of the classic Adelaide 500 race, which had its fair share of close finishes.

The intense 3.2 kilometer street circuit is a big favorite of racers, but it is also popular with fans and TV viewers as it always tends to feature racing that is often pushed to the limit.

In fact, the closest finish in Adelaide 500 history is just 0.5420 seconds!

That was the difference between Garth Tander’s Holden Racing Team Commodore and Jamie Whincup’s TeamVodafone Commodore after 78 laps of hard-fought racing in Saturday’s 2011 event.

The win made it three straight Adelaide 500 wins for Thunder and follows his clean sweep of the race last year.

Five years later, Whincup also found himself on the wrong end of the second-fastest finish in the Adelaide 500, once again following one of HRT’s Commodores across the line.

However, in the second Saturday race of 2016 (there were a pair of 125-kilometre races on Saturday that year rather than one 250-kilometre race), James Courtney won rather than Thunder, the margin being just 0.6310. seconds.

Courtney was also honored to claim her third win in Adelaide 500 history, beating Craig Lowndes’ Red Bull Commodore in Sunday’s race in 2014 by 0.6658 seconds.

This means the three closest finishes in Adelaide 500 history were HRT/Walkinshaw Racing cars beating Triple Eight Race Engineering cars.

Last year’s Saturday race had the fourth-fastest finish but first in the list of top five finishes involving a Ford.

Cam Waters’ Ken Block-inspired Monster Mustang beat David Reynolds’ Penrite Mustang by 0.6708 seconds.

Fifth in the top five Adelaide 500 finishers is Whincup, who beat home HRT driver Will Davison by 0.7479 seconds in Sunday’s 2009 race.

TOP 5 FINISHES OF THE ADELAIDE 500 RACE:

ADMISSION	RACE WINNER	SECOND PLACE	RACE
0.5420 s	Garth Thunder (HRT)	Jamie Whincup (T8)	2011 Saturday
0.6310 s	James Courtney (HRT)	Jamie Whincup (T8)	2016 Saturday 2
0.6658 s	James Courtney (HRT)	Craig Lowndes (T8)	2014 Sunday
0.6708 s	Cam Waters (Tickford)	David Reynolds (Grove)	2023 Saturday
0.7479 s	Jamie Whincup (T8)	Will Davison (HRT)	2009 Sunday

The 2024 VAILO Adelaide 500 will take place over four days from 14 to 17 November, with the 25th^th the anniversary of his Hall of Fame induction is being celebrated both on and off the track.

VAILO Adelaide 500 is a promotional partner of V8 Sleuth.