Jamie Whincup has claimed his first ARMOR ALL Pole Position at Mount Panorama.
Whincup and co-driver Paul Dumbrell will start at the front of the grid for the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 tomorrow, after Whincup recorded a 2min07.8825sec lap. He was the only driver in the ’07s’ in the one lap dash.
While the rest of the grid was decided in yesterday’s qualifying session, the final 10 each had a flying lap, with Fujitsu GRM’s Alex Premat the first out on track.
Each filed out, GRM teammate McLaughlin second, who topped the Frenchman.
David Reynolds followed, but was 0.1sec behind the young kiwi racer.
Will Davison and Craig Lowndes improved the top time, but it was Shane van Gisbergen who sprung to the top with an amazing drive.
James Courtney was next in the queue. A big moment at The Cutting meant he was down 0. 2381sec at the end of the first sector, but he recovered for second, behind the TEKNO racer.
But it wasn’t to be for van Gisbergen – each of the last three on track bettered the lap, Jason Bright only just by 0.004sec, and then Mark Winterbottom.
However, after Whincup’s dash, Winterbottom was left 0.1939sec behind, and will start alongside the Red Bull Commodore on the front row tomorrow.
Final top 10 order is Whincup/Dumbrell, Winterbottom/Steve Richards, Bright/Andrew Jones, van Gisbergen/Jeroen Bleekemolen, Courtney/Greg Murphy, Lowndes/Warren Luff, Davison/Steve Owen, McLaughlin/Jack Perkins, Reynolds/Dean Canto and Premat/Greg Ritter. Click here for the results page.
Click here for full qualifying results, which determined from position 11.
