From Formula One streets to Supercars' record attendance, a cancelled event that came back, and why the race format kept changing.
The Adelaide 500, long known as the Clipsal 500, is a Supercars race held on a shortened Adelaide Grand Prix circuit. It began in 1999, was cancelled after 2020, and returned in 2022 as the season finale, drawing about 250,000 people in 2023, the biggest crowd in the series.
The biggest crowd ever to watch a domestic motorsport event in Australia gathered in 2008 on the parkland streets of Adelaide, where every grandstand is built from scratch each year and torn down afterwards.
What is the Adelaide 500 and where is it held?
Officially named the BP Adelaide Grand Final, the Adelaide 500 is a Supercars meeting staged on the streets of Adelaide's east end. It took place from 1999 to 2020 and again from 2022, over a cut-down version of the old Australian Grand Prix circuit. Many people still call it Clipsal, after its longtime sponsor.
Crowd figures put it at the top of the sport. About 250,000 people attended in 2023, which makes it the most attended race in the Supercars Championship, and another account of the series gives more than 285,000 a year. The all-time high was 291,400 in 2008, a bigger gathering than any other domestic motorsport event in Australia has drawn.
Everything around the track is temporary. The pit buildings and grandstands go up and come down every year, and for most of its history the race was part of what Adelaide calls mad March, beside the Adelaide Festival and Fringe, WOMADelaide and Writers' Week. Since its return the race has closed the season in late November or early December.
Everything around the track is temporary, yet the crowd has been the biggest in Australian domestic motorsport.
How did the Clipsal 500 grow out of the Adelaide Grand Prix circuit?
In October 1984 Adelaide was handed a place on the 1985 Formula One calendar, and Macmahon Holdings built the track. After eleven Formula One races the rights moved to Melbourne in 1995. On 1 September 1998 the state government announced a deal with AVESCO for a Supercars race on a shortened version of the same streets.
Touring cars were not strangers to the place. Group A cars from 1985 to 1992 and Group 3A cars from 1993 to 1995 had raced in support of the Grand Prix, although those races did not count towards the Australian Touring Car Championship. South Australia had also hosted championship rounds at Mallala Motor Sport Park in 1963 and from 1969 to 1998, and at Adelaide International Raceway from 1972 to 1988. The new street race effectively took over the Mallala date.
The first contract ran for five years with an option for five more. It was announced as the Sensational Adelaide 500, and after the 1999 race Clipsal was named major sponsor, a deal that lasted until 2017. The 2018 race had no major naming rights sponsor, and the broadband provider Superloop then took the title for three years. AVESCO, the promoter, had been formed in November 1996 to run the series, and the 1999 Adelaide round was one of its first festival-style events.
The Supercars layout is shorter than the Formula One original. The Grand Prix circuit measured 3.780 km (2.349 mi), while the Adelaide 500 uses 3.219 km (2.000 mi). The same streets have also hosted an American Le Mans Series round, the Race of a Thousand Years, in 2000, and the Adelaide Motorsport Festival.
What makes the Adelaide street circuit fast and awkward?
Cars leave a 500 m (550 yd) pit straight in Victoria Park and meet the Senna Chicane, which honours Ayrton Senna, who died at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Fast sections alternate with hairpins and a run of right-angle corners, and the track is almost flat, with elevation between 36 and 53 m (118 and 174 ft).
After the chicane the cars turn left and climb a short straight on Wakefield Road, then reach three right-angle corners in a row. A fourth leads onto Bartels Road, across the parklands, and into the fast turn 8 sweeper. A right-hand hairpin at the Britannia Roundabout sends drivers back onto Wakefield Road, and the lap ends with the Racetrack Hairpin onto the pit straight.
Turn 8 was reshaped because of crashes. After Brad Jones rolled at the corner in 2000, among other incidents, it was re-profiled in 2002 into what became known as The Sweeper, and it claimed high-profile victims in its first year, including Paul Radisich and Glenn Seton. One account calls that the layout's only modification to date; another records that the building of the O-Bahn busway tunnel in 2017 meant turns 7 and 8 had to move about 100 metres south.
The Formula One cars made the Dequetteville Terrace straight famous. This 900 m (980 yd) stretch let the turbo-era cars of 1985 to 1988, with more than 1,000 bhp (746 kW; 1,014 PS), pass 200 mph (320 km/h), which made Adelaide the fastest street circuit of its time; the others were tighter, at Monaco, Detroit and Phoenix. The Supercars short course rejoins that straight two-thirds of the way along, so the 640 m (700 yd) Bartels Road straight is the longest on that layout, and in 2007 the section was renamed Brock Straight after Peter Brock.
Ayrton Senna set 1:13.371 on the Grand Prix circuit in qualifying for the 1993 Australian Grand Prix, but because it came in qualifying it is not the official lap record. The quickest official lap of the Supercars circuit, 1:16.0357, belongs to Aaron Cameron, who recorded it in a Rogers AF01/V8 during the 2023 S5000 Australian Drivers' Championship, on 24 November.
Why did V8 Supercars love the Adelaide 500?
The event collected awards from the start. The series rated it its top event every year between 1999 and 2004, it entered the Supercars Hall of Fame in 2005, and by 2011 it had been named Best Event of the Year, out of 14 events, for the eighth time. It was also the biggest ticketed sporting occasion in South Australia for a thirteenth consecutive year.
Part of the appeal was the weekend around the racing. Evening concerts have booked Kiss, Motley Crue and Santana, as well as Keith Urban, Robbie Williams, Hilltop Hoods, Rob Thomas and The Doobie Brothers. In November 2024 the After Race Concert series was headlined by Crowded House, Cold Chisel and The Cruel Sea, with The Superjesus, Ocean Alley and Meg Mac also on the bill. Support races have included Super2, SuperUtes, Super5000, Touring Car Masters, Australian GT and Carrera Cup. The event also took the major festivals and events award at the Australian Tourism Awards for 2003/04, 2005, 2007 and 2008.
The calendar helped. Between 2002 and 2009 the championship began at Adelaide every year. A round in the United Arab Emirates, the Yas V8 400, took that slot in 2010 and 2011, and from 2012 Adelaide opened the season again, until its move to the finale in 2022. In 2002 capacity and scheduling constraints at the street track meant a pre-qualifying session was held at Mallala in the week before the event.
The racing itself supplied the stories. Craig Lowndes won the Saturday race in the first event in 1999, was disqualified over a collision with Danny Osborne, started from the back for the Sunday race, passed every car and won it. His disqualification was later overturned. The first edition also tested the drivers: Paul Radisich and John Faulkner both needed medical help because of dehydration.
Mark Skaife won the Sunday race in 2000 after starting 38th, yet Garth Tander was given the event win, the only time the Sunday winner did not get it. Holden dominated from 1999 to 2003, and Marcos Ambrose gave Ford its first victory in 2004, winning both races and repeating the feat in 2005, when Ford took the top four places in the Saturday race. Jamie Whincup won in 2006 on his first outing for Triple Eight Race Engineering, then in 2008, 2009 and 2011, which makes him the event's most successful driver to date. The 2008 weekend was marred by the death of Ashley Cooper after a crash in the Fujitsu V8 Supercars Series race.
The finish of 2012 stays in the mind. Whincup chased down and passed Will Davison on the last lap of the Saturday race as Davison's car ran short of fuel, and Davison took the event with a Sunday win. In 2016 thunderstorms and heavy rain disrupted Sunday, and Nick Percat took the only solo win of his career with Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport after a delayed start, confusion over fuel drops and a red flag. Shane van Gisbergen swept 2017 and 2018, and the 2018 race, the twentieth running, saw the Holden ZB Commodore win on its first outing.
Why did the Adelaide 500 format change?
The main change came from fans and drivers. A second 125 km race on Saturday was introduced in 2014, but the organisers dropped it after the 2016 event because both groups found it unpopular. From 2017 the weekend returned to its original shape of two 250 km races, with the final race normally deciding the event winner.
| Period | Race format | Place in season |
|---|---|---|
| 1999 plan | One 500 km race paused overnight at halfway, rewritten overnight after leading cars dropped out | February or March |
| 1999 to 2013 | Two races, in most years 250 km each | Opening round from 2002 to 2009 and again from 2012; Yas V8 400 opened in 2010 and 2011 |
| 2014 to 2016 | Two 125 km races on Saturday, one 250 km race on Sunday | Opening round |
| 2017 to 2020 | Back to two 250 km races | Opening round |
| 2022 onwards | Two 250 km races | Closing round, late November or early December |
The 1999 rules had first described a single 500 km race, paused overnight at the halfway point. After several leading cars dropped out of the opening half, officials rewrote the rules overnight so those cars could start on Sunday, which proved controversial.
The weekend runs from Thursday to Sunday. There is a thirty-minute practice session on Thursday and another on Friday. Friday also has a fifteen-minute qualifying session, followed a day later by a top ten shootout, with a fifteen-minute practice in between on Saturday; together they set the grid for the first 250 km (160 mi) race. Sunday repeats the pattern of fifteen-minute qualifying and a top ten shootout for the second 250 km race.
Although every race counts towards the championship, the winner of the last race was normally named event winner regardless of the first. That produced oddities. In 2007 Todd and Rick Kelly won one race each, and the event win went to Rick on the strength of his Sunday victory even though his brother had scored more points over the weekend, the first time the leader on weekend points missed out.
Why was the Adelaide 500 cancelled in 2020, and why did it return?
In October 2020 the South Australian Tourism Commission withdrew support, ending the contract a year early without seeking a renewal. Premier Steven Marshall pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic, higher costs and fading interest after Australian-built Falcons and Commodores left the series. The race returned in 2022 after an election promise.
Supercars said soon afterwards that it regretted the decision and was ready to come back to Adelaide if the government held the event again. Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas launched a petition campaign to bring it back, committed to reinstating it before the 2022 state election, and was elected premier. The race came back as the final round of the 2022 series.
The South Australian LED lighting and display maker then known as VALO took naming rights for three years. The company became VAILO in May 2023, and the 2023 event carried the name VAILO Adelaide 500. The final event before the break had its own moment: in the week leading into the 2020 race General Motors announced that Holden, a brand founded in Adelaide that had competed in every edition of the championship, would disappear at the end of 2020. Whincup dedicated his first-race win to Holden, and Scott McLaughlin took the back-to-back event win after van Gisbergen lost the Sunday race to a fuel stop forced by a team error and a mechanical failure.
Which cars race at Adelaide?
Supercars are loosely based on road cars, built around a control chassis with only some body panels shared with the showroom versions. Engines are race-prepared versions of current units from Ford, GM and Toyota, and the rules aim at technical parity so that any approved model can win.
The Ford Mustang runs a version of the Coyote double-overhead-cam V8, the Chevrolet Camaro a version of the GM LTR pushrod V8, and the Toyota GR Supra a bespoke version of the 2UR-GSE V8. Falcons and Commodores were the only models originally, until rules introduced in 2013 opened the series. Nissan and Mercedes-Benz were at Adelaide in 2013, followed by Volvo in 2014. The Mustang took over from the Falcon at Ford in 2019, the Camaro ZL1 stepped in for Holden from 2023, and Toyota arrived in 2026. Scott McLaughlin won the first race and round for the Mustang on debut in 2019, the first Mustang win in the championship since Allan Moffat at Oran Park in 1972.
Where this goes next
The same streets are lined up for a second headline event. Premier Peter Malinauskas announced on 19 February 2026 that the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix will leave Phillip Island and become a MotoGP round in Adelaide's eastern Park Lands from late 2027, over a much-altered Formula One layout.
The plan has drawn opposition. The Premier said publicly that about 45 trees would be lost and that the Glover East Playspace would have to be moved, while the Adelaide Parklands Association argued that this significantly understated the likely impact. By August 2026 residents, councillors including Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith and others were criticising the plan, which could involve felling up to 200 trees, and some suggested The Bend at Tailem Bend as an alternative. A letter to FIM president Jorge Viegas asked for an independent environmental impact assessment, and a separate objection says the circuit would take 45% of the remnant grassland in Pakapakanthi (Park 16), putting a vulnerable butterfly colony at risk.
Dorna Sports said on 8 August that a final layout would be confirmed within weeks. The Adelaide 500 itself carries on each year as the season finale, supported at present by Super2, SuperUtes, Porsche Carrera Cup Australia and GT World Challenge Australia.
