Herne blasts fastest-ever lap of Gold Coast track

Nathan Herne has set the fastest-ever lap of the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in Qualifying for the S5000 Series at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.

The Garry Rogers Motorsport driver lapped a blistering 1:09.6681s to claim pole position and smash the fastest outright time set by David Reynolds in his Ford Falcon FG in 2013 around the current circuit layout.

It was tipped that the fastest outright lap of the 2.96km circuit would topple off the back of times that were set in Friday practice.

Practice pacesetter Cooper Webster was the first to break the 1:10s barrier, blasting a 1:09.8055s on his fifth lap.

The Versa Motorsport driver improved on his following lap, with a 1:09.7823s.

Gold Star champion Joey Mawson was the second driver into the 1:09s, with a 1:09.8733s, also on his fifth lap.

Herne then went to the top of the timesheets with his 1:09.6681s, set on his seventh lap.

The session was red flagged after the #79 of Jude Bargwanna found the wall at Turn 13.

It resumed with two minutes on the clock and was red flagged again with 44 seconds remaining after Webster went into the fence hard, pushing hard on cold tyres at the Turn 1 chicane complex.

He glanced the wall on the inside of the circuit, before smashing into the wall on the outside.

Despite the crash, Webster finished the session second-fastest behind Herne, with Mawson third.

Jordan Boys was fourth, with Ben Bargwanna in fifth.

His cousin Jude Barwanna was sixth, with Noah Sands, Mark Rosser, and debutant Elly Morrow completing the order.

S5000 will take to the track for Race 1 at 13:50 local time/14:50 AEDT.