TEKNO Autosports’ Shane Van Gisbergen said he had some homework to do heading into the Sucrogen Townsville 400 in relation to his qualifying performance. After this morning’s session, it looks as if his preparation has worked.

Van Gisbergen was fastest in ARMOR ALL Qualifying, where teams were only allowed to run hard Dunlop tyres.

However, he hasn’t gotten an A on his report card yet, only bought himself a pass to the Top 10 Shootout – following at 1.10pm EST – which determines the first third of the grid for this afternoon’s 70-lap, 200km race.

Teams were only allowed to use hard tyres in that session. And van Gisbergen has only run hard tyres this weekend, so the Shootout will be new ground for him and his VIP Petfoods Commodore.

“We’ve sort of flown under the radar in practice because we haven’t softs, so it’s going to be interesting,” he said after Qualifying.

“A lot of people have run good tyres so we don’t know what the grip’s going to be. So it’s going to be hard for us to stay in the top half of the Shootout, but we’ll see.”

Van Gisbergen laughed his homework had helped.

“The car’s been really good for a start and I’ve been working on how to prepare the tyres for a lap. It seemed to work then and obviously we were quickest – but the job’s not done yet…

“This car really suits the street tracks, it’s a great car here over the kerbs. In past years we have had good cars, but this thing is something else.”

For the first time in the history of the event, Jamie Whincup has qualified outside of the top 10, ending the session in 16th. Garth Tander will start next to him on the grid in 15th, and fellow Red Bull Racing Australia driver Craig Lowndes is locked into 12th. All four Ford Performance Racing cars have made it into the top 10, and one Erebus Motorsport V8 machine.

The 10 fastest run in reverse order in the shootout – however van Gisbergen didn’t feel he had any advantage to be tackling the circuit last. “It doesn’t phase me – I’d prefer not to know what other people do and drive to what we’ve got.”

That means we will see Alex Davison, followed by Tim Slade, Scott McLaughlin (fastest earlier today), Jason Bright, David Reynolds, Will Davison, Courtney, Fabian Coulthard, Mark Winterbottom and van Gisbergen last.

See full Qualifying results here.