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| Round 12 of 15 in the 2012 International V8 Supercars Championship | ||||||||||||||
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| Date | 19–21 October 2012 | |||||||||||||
| Location | Surfers Paradise, Queensland | |||||||||||||
| Venue | Surfers Paradise Street Circuit | |||||||||||||
| Weather | Fine | |||||||||||||
| Results | ||||||||||||||
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The 2012 Armor All Gold Coast 600 was a touring car motor race for V8 Supercars. It was the Round 12 of the 2012 International V8 Supercars Championship and the 22nd edition of the event. It occurred from 19 to 21 October at the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit on the Gold Coast, Queensland. Race 22 was won by Triple Eight Race Engineering's Jamie Whincup and Sébastien Bourdais from pole position. Will Davison and Mika Salo of Ford Performance Racing won the following day's second race from fourth place.
Whincup took the pole position by posting the fastest lap in the top ten shootout but lost his lead to Salo at the start which was twice red flagged for a total of 50 minutes because of two separate start-line crashes that reduced the distance of the race from 102 to 79 laps. Bourdais challenged Salo over laps 23 and 32 but he could not overtake Salo on both occasions as the latter struggled with acceleration. Whincup later relieved Bourdais and retook the lead, building a six-and-a-half-second advantage that was reduced to nothing when the safety car was deployed for debris retrieval. He held off Jonathon Webb for the rest of Race 22 to win for the 60th time in his career.
For Race 23, Whincup took his second consecutive pole position with the fastest lap time of qualifying. His co-driver Bourdais led the first 36 laps from Marc Lieb in second and Will Power in third before his first green flag pit stop for fuel, tyres and was relieved by Whincup. Salo led for the next 20 laps until his own stop and his car was driven by Davison. Tim Slade led the field after a safety car period for debris retrieval and he held it until Davison overtook him for the lead on the 80th lap. Davison maintained the lead for the remainder of the race to take his 13th career victory after holding off Whincup in the final five laps.
Whincup increased his Drivers' Championship lead with 3,060 points and Mark Winterbottom moved from third to second with 2,842 points. Craig Lowndes fell to third with 2,812 points and Will Davison's victory in Race 23 maintained him fourth with 2,503 points. In the Teams' Championship, Triple Eight Race Engineering led with 5,900 points over Ford Performance Racing in second with 5,285 points. Stone Brothers Racing and Holden Brothers Racing kept third and fourth with three rounds left in the season.