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In one of the closest Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Australia qualifiers of the year, it was Jones’ seventh in the one-make category. The Porsche Centre Motorsport Melbourne driver’s best lap was 1:08.7300s.
He is the seventh driver to score three or more consecutive pole positions in a season, while the Queenslander also now sits equal sixth on the all-time pole sitters list.
He finished just 0.1s faster than Garth Walden Racing’s Dylan O’Keeffe, who struggled in 16th early before he rebounded when it counted.
McElrea Racing teammates Jackson Walls and Bayley Hall were next, the latter on a better time when he overstepped at Dandenong Road corner. Both finished ahead of TekworkX Motorsport’s David Russell.
Jones’ teammate Fabian Coulthard equalled his best of the year with sixth while Nash Morris (in Scott Taylor’s entry and run by Ash Seward Motorsport) was seventh in a return to form. On debut, Zak Best qualified his EMA Motorsport car eighth while Marcos Flack and Dale Wood rounded out the top 10.
As the teams warmed up their second set of tyres, the red flag temporarily stopped the session, albeit briefly with Marc Cini stopped on the front straight before Turn 1.
Like Equity Pro, it was a similar story in SP Tools Pro-Am where Earl Bamber Motorsport’s Adrian Flack scored his fourth pole of the season with a 1:09.6993s and 17th outright.
Sam Shahin qualified second ahead of last year’s Sandown winner Dean Cook. Rodney Jane was next ahead of Matt Belford, Matt Slavin, Stephen Grove and Cini.
Porsche Carrera Cup Australia will have two races on Saturday. Race 1 is at 9:15am AEST and the longer Enduro Cup at 2:55pm AEST.
