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| Race Information | |
| Venue | Pukekohe Park Raceway |
| Number of times held | 15 |
| First held | 1996 |
| Last held | 2022 |
| Race Format | |
| Race 1 | |
| Laps | 41 |
| Distance | 120 km |
| Race 2 | |
| Laps | 41 |
| Distance | 120 km |
| Race 3 | |
| Laps | 41 |
| Distance | 120 km |
| Last Event (2022) | |
| Overall Winner | |
 Shane van Gisbergen | Triple Eight Race Engineering |
| Race Winners | |
 Will Davison | Dick Johnson Racing |
| Shane van Gisbergen | Triple Eight Race Engineering |
| Shane van Gisbergen | Triple Eight Race Engineering |
TheAuckland SuperSprint was an annualmotor racing event forSupercars, held atPukekohe Park Raceway inPukekohe,New Zealand. The event was a regular part of the Supercars Championship—and its previous incarnations, theShell Championship Series and V8 Supercars Championship—since2001.
The event was not held in 2020 and 2021 due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[1][2][3] Supercars returned to New Zealand and the Pukekoke Park Raceway circuit on September 10–11 for Round 10 of the 2022 season.
The event was staged over a three-day weekend, from Friday to Sunday. Two thirty-minute practice sessions were held, one on Friday and one on Saturday. Saturday featured a three-part qualifying session which decides the grid positions for the following 120 kilometre race. Two separated ten-minute qualifying sessions were held on Sunday, which decided the grid for the following 120 km races.[4]
Since 2013, the driver who scored the most points across all races during the weekend has received the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy. The trophy was introduced at the 2013 event in honour ofJason Richards, a one-time New Zealand Supercars race winner andSupercars Hall of Fame member who died of cancer in 2011.
Pukehohe Park was one of New Zealand's most historic race tracks, and has long seen links with Australian motor racing. This dates back to the famedPukekohe 500, which originally ran from 1984 to 1993 for touring cars and dates back to 1963 forproduction cars. Several Australian teams, along with local and international teams, competed in the enduranceGroup A event with Australian-based teams winning the event several times. The event was often twinned with theWellington 500, on a street circuit inWellington City. In1996, twelve cars from theAustralian Touring Car Championship raced in the Mobil 1 Sprints, a two event series at Pukekohe and Wellington. In a precursor to his later Supercars success at the track, all three races were won by local driverGreg Murphy for theHolden Racing Team.[5]
The first championship round at Pukekohe Park for what was then known asV8 Supercars was held in2001, entitled theBoost Mobile V8 International.[6] It was the first round in the history of theAustralian Touring Car Championship and Supercars not to be contested in Australia.Mark Skaife sealed the2001 Shell Championship Series in the first race, while Greg Murphy won the event, taking pole position and winning all three races for theKmart Racing Team.[7] Murphy maintained strong form at Pukekohe, winning again in 2002, 2003 and 2005.[5] The 2002 event contained the 500th race in championship history, which was won by Skaife.[8]Jason Bright was the only other driver to win the event in the first five years, doing so in 2004, while Murphy finished third.[9] In 2005 there was a major accident involvingCraig Baird andPaul Dumbrell during the third race.Jamie Whincup slid off the track at the final corner and Baird and Dumbrell squeezed together as Whincup returned to the circuit. However, Baird and Dumbrell came together and spun, both hitting the wall before coming to rest on opposite sides of the track with severely damaged cars. The race was red flagged as a result.[10]
The New Zealand event moved to theHamilton Street Circuit for 2008 and remained there until 2012.[11]
Supercars returned to a slightly modified Pukekohe layout in 2013 and the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy was introduced.[12]Jason Bright andBrad Jones Racing, Richards' last teammate and team respectively, were the first winners of the trophy.[12] In 2014, Ford'sMark Winterbottom was the event winner, marking the first win at the event forFord in its ninth running. The event was run over theAnzac Day long weekend, including a race on a Friday for the first time in championship history. In 2015 and 2017,Jamie Whincup, who was a teammate of Jason Richards in 2005 atTasman Motorsport and co-drove with him to a second-place finish at the2005 Bathurst 1000, won the trophy.[13][14] In 2016,Shane van Gisbergen became the first New Zealand driver to win the trophy.[15] In 2018, championship combatants van Gisbergen andScott McLaughlin each took a first and second in the two races, with McLaughlin winning the event on a countback due to his higher Sunday result.[16] The same two drivers won races in the 2019 event, which moved to a September date, with van Gisbergen this time winning the trophy. In winning the Sunday race, which included a controversial safety car that shuffled the field, McLaughlin surpassedCraig Lowndes'1996 record of 16 wins in a season.[17][18]
As in 2013, the 2020 Pukekohe event was scheduled on the Anzac Day weekend. It was later discovered that an amendment toAuckland Council's Unitary Plan in the intermediary period prohibited racing on the public holiday. As such the event was to be moved to the nearbyHampton Downs Motorsport Park, and was to continue to be known as the Auckland Super400 despite being located in the neighbouringWaikato region.[19] The event was later postponed, rescheduled to January 2021 (within the prolonged 2020 championship) and then cancelled altogether - all due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[20][21] The 2021 event was similarly cancelled due to the border issues arising from the pandemic.[3]
On 20 July 2022 it was confirmed thatPukekohe Park Raceway will cease motorsport activities from 2 April 2023.[22]
Events which were not championship rounds are indicated by a pink background.
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Wins which did not count towards the championship season are indicated by a pink background.
| Wins | Driver | Years |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Greg Murphy | 1996, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005 |
| 3 | Shane van Gisbergen | 2016, 2019, 2022 |
| 2 | Jason Bright | 2004, 2013 |
| Jamie Whincup | 2015, 2017 |
| Wins | Team |
|---|---|
| 5 | Triple Eight Race Engineering |
| 4 | HSV Dealer Team1 |
| 2 | Holden Racing Team |
| Paul Weel Racing |
| Wins | Manufacturer |
|---|---|
| 14 | Holden |
| 2 | Ford |