A pre-COVID staple of the Supercars schedule, the Gold Coast event was put on hold during the pandemic.
It is only now, with the majority of Australia's COVID measures now lifted, the annual battle on the streets of Surfers Paradise returns to the calendar.
This will be the first street race outside of Townsville to be held since the Adelaide 500 in early 2020, with drivers bracing for brutal re-introduction to the famous Surfers layout.
For one the circuit is one of the great challenges in Australian motorsport with little margin for error and kerbs that send the cars flying.
Secondly, the drivers will spend more time than ever threading the 650-horsepower needle through the concrete barriers.
Traditionally the Gold Coast event is a two-driver event staged over 600 kilometres split into a pair of 300-kilometre heats.
While the total distance has been reduced to 500 kilometres, split into 250-kilometre heats, the event is no longer classified as an enduro, which means it is all single driver.
Following a pair of practice sessions on Friday, the schedule for Saturday and Sunday is effectively identical.
Each day will feature a 20-minute all-in qualifying session which will determine which 10 drivers make the Top 10 Shootout as well as locking in grid positions 11-25.
The first five rows of the grid will then be determined by a single-lap dash.
The field will then line up for 85 gruelling laps around Surfers Paradise.
As for tyre allocation the Dunlop soft compound tyre will be used across the weekend, each driver limited to six sets from the start of Saturday's qualifying session onwards.
Shane van Gisbergen will head to the Gold Coast as the overwhelming favourite to add to what is already a record tally of wins this season.
His Triple Eight Race Engineering team has form on the Surfers streets, having clean-swept the event back in 2019.
Back then Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes won on the Saturday before van Gisbergen and Garth Tander prevailed on the Sunday.
This time around van Gisbergen will head into the event as the freshly-crowned Bathurst 1000 champion, while also in the box seat to seal a third Supercars crown.
The Kiwi currently holds a 567-point lead over Cam Waters with just 600 points on offer from the final four races.
If, by the end of Saturday's race, his advantage is still over 450 points he will be crowned series champion.
The undercard is headlined by the V8-powered S5000 series, this the first of the two Tasman Series rounds.
Carrera Cup will host its season finale this weekend while the V8 SuperUtes round out the support bill.
2022 Supercars Gold Coast 500 session times
All times local (GMT+10)
Friday October 28
10:30-10:50 V8 SuperUtes – Practice
11:00-11:20 S5000 – Practice 1
11:55-12:20 Carrera Cup – Practice 1
12:35-13:05 Supercars – Practice 1
13:35-13:55 V8 SuperUtes – Qualifying
14:05-14:25 S5000 – Practice 2
14:35-15:00 Carrera Cup – Practice 2
15:15-15:45 Supercars – Practice 2
Saturday October 29
9:15-9:35 V8 SuperUtes – Race 1
9:55-10:05 Carrera Cup – Qualifying 1
10:10-10:20 Carrera Cup – Qualifying 2
10:50-11:10 S5000 – Qualifying
11:25-11:45 Supercars – Qualifying
12:25-12:50 V8 SuperUtes – Race 2
13:05-13:30 Supercars – Top 10 Shootout
13:50-14:15 S5000 – Race 1
14:25-14:50 Carrera Cup – Race 1
15:45-17:48 Supercars – Race 1
Sunday October 30
8:00-8:25 S5000 – Race 2
8:35-9:15 Carrera Cup – Race 2
9:25-9:45 V8 SuperUtes – Race 3
9:55-10:15 Supercars – Qualifying
10:55-11:20 S5000 – Race 3
11:35-12:00 Supercars – Top 10 Shootout
12:20-12:40 V8 SuperUtes – Race 4
12:50-13:15 Carrera Cup – Race 3
14:15-16:18 Supercars – Race 2
