Who’s Your Tip to Win the VAILO Adelaide 500 This Year?

We look at five possibilities of who may take the race win on Sunday and clinch the 2024 trophy.

 

The VAILO Adelaide 500 title is one of the Supercars honours that drivers most want to win, with success on the streets of Adelaide rated almost as highly as clinching the Bathurst 1000 trophy.

The winner of the VAILO Adelaide 500 title is the driver who wins the second of the event’s two 250km races, held on the Sunday, and the likely contenders have never been as broad as they are in 2024.

Will it be The Champ, The Experienced, The Rookie, The Hot Form or The Hometown Hero?

These are the favourites to keep an eye on throughout the race.

THE CHAMP

The honour roll of Adelaide 500 winners reads like a list of Supercars series champions over the years – Craig Lowndes, Garth Tander, Mark Skaife, Marcos Ambrose, Jamie Whincup, Rick Kelly, Shane van Gisbergen, James Courtney and Scott McLaughlin have all won both.

Courtney, from Snowy River Racing, believes Adelaide is the best event all year, so a third Adelaide 500 win in 2024 would be something he would relish.

However, 2023 champion Brodie Kostecki, from Erebus Motorsport, and 2015 champion Mark Winterbottom, from Cub Cadet Racing, are the only two champions not to have won the Adelaide title – yet.

Kostecki comes into the round still buzzing from his Bathurst and Gold Coast race wins, while Winterbottom will want to leave his mark in his last full-time drive in his career.

THE EXPERIENCED

Three drivers in the 2024 Supercars field have previously won the Adelaide 500 – Shell V-Power Racing’s Will Davison in 2012, Snowy River Racing’s James Courtney in 2014 and 2015, and Bendix Racing’s Nick Percat in 2016.

Two other drivers – Mobil1 Optus Racing’s Chaz Mostert and Monster Castrol Racing’s Cam Waters – have also felt what it’s like to stand on the top step of the podium, although they won Saturday races, in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

Experience counts when it comes to nailing laps on a tough concrete-lined street circuit such as Adelaide, with one wrong move potentially causing a crash so severe it may wreck a race car for the whole weekend.

THE ROOKIE

Rookies have clinched both VAILO Adelaide 500 titles since the date of the event shifted from the start of the Repco Supercars Championship season to the end two years ago.

In 2022, Broc Feeney, from Red Bull Ampol Racing, debuted as a full-time driver in the series, then was first past the chequered flag in the Adelaide title-winning race.

Then in 2023, Matt Payne, from Penrite Racing, accomplished the same feat in his first year on the grid.

If a rookie is to complete the hat trick and take the title this year, there are three contenders – Ryan Wood, from Mobil1 Truck Assist Racing; Jaxon Evans, from SCT Motorsport; and Aaron Love, from CoolDrive Racing.

THE HOT FORM

Several drivers enter the last round of the year with some seriously hot form.

Erebus Motorsport’s Brodie Kostecki won the Sunday race at the last round on the Gold Coast, after winning the previous round – the Bathurst 1000 – also on a Sunday.

Monster Castrol Racing’s Cam Waters placed first and second in the two races at Townsville, one of two other street-circuit events this year – before backing it up with a win and a fourth on the Gold Coast.

Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Broc Feeney’s five race wins occurred early in the season, however he has placed on the podium in each race of the past three rounds.

THE HOMETOWN HERO

There is nothing as sweet as winning your home event and this year two South Australian drivers will line up on the VAILO Adelaide 500 grid.

Nick Percat, from Bendix Racing, won the event in 2016 and comes into the final round of the season in eighth place in the championship, having won two races so far this year.

PremiAir Nulon Racing’s Tim Slade will hang up the boots on his full-time Supercars driving career after Adelaide, having debuted in the main game at the same track in 2009, so will be pulling out all stops to win his last race at his home event.

If either SA driver wins, it will also be a very popular victory among the local crowd.