Shane van Gisbergen has claimed his first ARMOR ALL Pole Position driving for Red Bull Racing Australia. It is his 10th career P1 start and sets a new lap record at the Hidden Valley circuit.
On just his second lap in the 15-minute qualifying session, the quick Kiwi nailed a 1min06.0923 – 0.1603sec faster than the lap record set by David Reynolds last year.
Three drivers eclipsed the 2015 record, with Nissan’s Michael Caruso set to start on the front row, qualifying 0.0831sec behind the Red Bull Commodore.
Will Davison, in TEKNO’s Triple Eight car, starts third with last year’s Darwin race winner Chaz Mostert alongside.
“We just straight away did a pretty good lap, normally you go better on the second run but I couldn’t – the first one was awesome,” van Gisbergen said.
“It’s great, we finally got our first pole, the team hasn’t had one for a while – I’m really looking forward to keep improving these cars.”
Red Bull’s last pole was at the Sydney Olympic Park finale with Jamie Whincup behind the wheel last year.
Caruso – who earned his first and only Supercars race win at Hidden Valley – praised the teamwork in the Nissan squad.
“Fantastic job, I’m happy with what I did in the car but it can’t be done without the great work from all the boys in the team. We feel like we’ve made progress,” he said.
Defending champ Mark Winterbottom starts fifth with Whincup alongside, with Craig Lowndes and Tim Slade to start on the fourth row.
The Supercars will race 120km this afternoon at 4.15pm local time.
