Reigning champion Josh Anderson bolstered his title hopes with pole position for the first race of Round 4 of the Battery World Aussie Racing Cars Super Series at Hidden Valley, Darwin.

The Mustang driver has had an indifferent season to date but struck back with a time of 1:17.0874s to edge out 2023 championship leader Joel Heinrich by 0.22s. Heinrich has been dominant this year with nine (out of 12) race wins to his credit.

Anderson’s pole winning time came with five minutes to go after the session resumed. It went green following a red flag situation which was brought about by Grant Thompson (Mustang) clouting the Armco when he overstepped out of turn five.

Third fastest was Brandon Madden (Camaro) who was a race winner at Queensland Raceway, ahead of Cody Brewczynski (Mustang). The latter missed the last round in Tasmania after a poor start to the season. Reece Chapman (Mustang) has also won a race this year, and he was fifth fastest ahead of Anthony Di Mauro (Camaro).

Another strong performance has been put in by Grant Thompson, the head of the multi-car (Mustangs) Western Sydney Motorsport outfit, who was seventh quickest. He bested Camaro pilots Brendon Tucker and Scott Dornan while Nathan William (Mustang) was tenth.

A former race winner and out of action since COVID has been Adam Uebergang. He returned to be eleventh in his Camaro, ahead of Kent Quinn (Mustang), and Olympic Silver Medallist John Steffensen (Mustang). The next five in the 31 that went out were Camaro steerers Cody McKay, Sheridan Phillips, Denis Butler, Josh Thomas and Matt Gooding – 2.0s off pole.

Earlier in the day, the practice session was headed by Brewczynski, in front of Heinrich, Anderson, Chapman, Quinn, Madden and Di Mauro.

The Aussie Racing Cars head for Race 1 in Darwin tomorrow, Saturday June 17, at 09:25 local/09:55 AEST.