The Ford of David Reynolds and Dean Canto will start Sunday’s Bathurst 1000 V8 Supercar race from pole position after a heavily-revised qualifying Saturday at Mount Panorama.
After being in contention in the last two 1000km classics, Reynolds partially made up for the disappointments by taking his first pole at the circuit.
Third man out in the single-car, Top 10 Shootout, Reynolds’s Prodrive Ford took advantage of the wet and worsening conditions, lapping in 2m27.82s, some 20 seconds down on what would be a racing lap in normal conditions.
“I think it’s the first time I have ever been around here in the wet!” he beamed after topping the session.
“I might have got lucky. I tried to put a good lap in and I think it was pretty fast.”
The Reynolds/Canto pairing placed second in 2013 and was in contention to win last year until suffering an alternator failure – after starting at the rear of the grid when Reynolds missed a weighbridge in qualifying.
Scott McLaughlin will start the race second in the Volvo S60 he will share with Alex Premat, ahead of Jason Bright/Andrew Jones and Lee Holdsworth/Sebastien Bourdais (Holdens) and the Nissan of James Moffat/Taz Douglas.
Wet weather master Shane van Gisbergen got the worst of the conditions, and even a lap four seconds faster than the car that preceded him in the Shootout was good enough only for sixth.
Scott Pye was seventh in the DJR-Penske Ford he’ll share with Marcos Ambrose, ahead of three Holdens, driven by Jamie Whincup, Fabian Coulthard and Tim Slade.
TITLE CONTENDERS TO START MID-PACK
Earlier in the day the grid from 11th back was set in tricky conditions.
Already cut from a scheduled 40 to 30 minutes, light rain put a halt to any serious running after 14 minutes.
This meant that some of the drivers usually expected to make the Shootout were stuck well back and unable to improve their times.
Prodrive’s Mark Winterbottom, who appears to be champion-elect after teammate Chaz Mostert’s qualifying crash on Friday, will start from 14th.
His closest non-Prodrive challenger, Red Bull’s Craig Lowndes, will be one spot further back, while former race winner Garth Tander was even worse off, and will line up for the Holden Racing Team from 22nd on Sunday.
V8 Supercars rookie Simona di Silvestro will start the race 25th of the 26 cars in the Prodrive Ford she will share with Renee Gracie.
More wet weather is expected on Sunday for the 161-lap race, which starts at 11am local time.
TOP 10 SHOOTOUT RESULTS:
| Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | David Reynolds | Rod Nash/PRA | Ford | 2m27.8201s | – |
| 2 | Scott McLaughlin | GRM | Volvo | 2m28.9746s | 1.1545s |
| 3 | Jason Bright | Brad Jones | Holden | 2m29.7006s | 1.8805s |
| 4 | Lee Holdsworth | Walkinshaw/HRT | Holden | 2m29.8139s | 1.9938s |
| 5 | James Moffat | Nissan Motorsport | Nissan | 2m30.0084s | 2.1883s |
| 6 | Shane van Gisbergen | Tekno | Holden | 2m30.8456s | 3.0255s |
| 7 | Scott Pye | DJR Penske | Ford | 2m31.6312s | 3.8111s |
| 8 | Jamie Whincup | Triple Eight | Holden | 2m32.0536s | 4.2335s |
| 9 | Fabian Coulthard | Brad Jones | Holden | 2m32.1246s | 4.3045s |
| 10 | Tim Slade | Schwerkolt/HRT | Holden | 2m34.7168s | 6.8967s |
