The TEKNO Autosports Commodore of Shane van Gisbergen and Jonathon Webb will start from ARMOR ALL Pole Position tomorrow in the Bathurst 1000.
Van Gisbergen was second last out the gate and threw everything he had into the lap, skimming so close to the wall you’d swear he’d lose a mirror on the way to his 2min06.3267 lap around Mount Panorama.
The quick Kiwi is renowned for his car control – and it was enough to top Pepsi Max’s Mark Winterbottom, who will be starting alongside on the front row.
“I knew the track was going to be good for us, just tried to put a clean, fast lap together for us and it was good!” Van Gisbergen said when getting out of the car.
“Stoked for the guys… that was awesome!”
Team boss Steve Hallam was emotional after earning the privilege of the front row start.
“Pretty choked up at the moment,” he said. “It was a mighty drive from Shane, to be honest the car has been difficult early on in the weekend, but the team’s stuck with it and worked through it… this guy was born to drive racing cars.”
Craig Lowndes was the first driver out on track, his Red Bull team having raced the clock to get the car out on track after he was involved in a monster shunt. And while he held the top spot for a time, while James Moffat and Jack Perkins slotted in behind.
Jason Bright and Scott McLaughlin pushed hard, Dale Wood dropped in behind, but Winterbottom went better again before van Gisbergen’s stunner.
Fabian Coulthard – yesterday’s fastest man and the all-time quickest around Mount Panorama in a V8 Supercar – could not improve on the time, and was relegated to fifth after a less than perfect lap.
Only nine cars participated in the ARMOR ALL Top 10 Shootout, after Garth Tander/Warren Luff withdrew from the meeting after an earlier crash.
Official order is van Gisbergen, Winterbottom, McLaughlin, Bright, Coulthard, Lowndes, Moffat, Wood and Perkins.
Click here for full results.
There will be a warm up session at Mount Panorama tomorrow morning at 7.50am with the 1000km race beginning at 10.30am local time.
