Erebus Motorsport’s Brodie Kostecki has clinched pole position for the Repco Bathurst 1000 by a margin of almost half a second, despite an early moment on his Shootout lap.
The Repco Supercars Championship leader charged to a 2:04.2719s, easily the fastest ever Gen3 lap around Mount Panorama and 0.4830s quicker than Broc Feeney’s Top 10 Shootout effort.
Either of Kostecki or David Russell will therefore start from the inside of the front row tomorrow morning in the #99 Coca-Cola Camaro, with either of Feeney or Jamie Whincup to the outside in the #88 Red Bull Ampol Camaro.
Tickford Racing’s Cameron Waters was quickest of the Ford drivers, putting the #6 Mustang third on the grid at just 0.0226s behind Feeney, with PremiAir Racing’s James Golding earning fourth in the #31 Nulon Camaro.
The rest of the top 10 was Anton De Pasquale (#11 Shell V-Power Mustang), Shane van Gisbergen (#97 Red Bull Ampol Camaro), David Reynolds (#26 Penrite Mustang), Matt Payne (#19 Penrite Mustang), Chaz Mostert (#25 Mobil 1 Optus Mustang), and Will Davison (#17 Shell V-Power Mustang).
Kostecki had earned provisional pole on the afternoon prior and hence was last onto the Mount Panorama Motor Racing Circuit for the one-lap dash with his target being the 2:047549s set by Feeney, four cars earlier.
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He touched the dirt exiting Hell Corner and got slightly loose, but was only 0.0339s slower to the first sector.
The West Australian then banged out a 32.7879s across the top and a 40.4576s in the final sector, both of those being session benchmarks, to prevail by a relatively hefty margin.
Earlier, Payne, who had provisionally qualified eighth, set a 2:05.2696s which appeared mightily impressive.
However, van Gisbergen immediately beat it by more than a quarter of a second when he clocked a 2:04.9971s, almost two tenths of a second faster than his Qualifying time.
Van Gisbergen’s Triple Eight Race Engineering team-mate Feeney came two cars later and he wheeled the #88 Camaro to a 2:04.7549s.
Waters was next and he was ultra-committed in Sector 2, just touching the dirt at McPhillamy Park before bumping the wall exiting Forrest’s Elbow or coming very close to doing so.
That put the two-time Bathurst 1000 pole-sitter up on Feeney to that intermediate but he tripped the control line 0.0226s slower all-told.
Golding earned fourth from a provisional second on the grid with a 2:04.8155s and De Pasquale similarly slipped from third to fifth having set a 2:04.9156s.
Van Gisbergen thus claimed sixth, with Row 4 all-Grove Racing after Payne ended up seventh and Reynolds eighth on a 2:05.1512s.
Mostert remained ninth with a 2:05.8309s and Davison took 10th on a 2:06.4174s after a loose moment when he got the dirt exiting Hell Corner.
Davison had initially understeered into the first corner of the track, which he attributed to ongoing braking issues.
The Warm Up starts tomorrow at 08:00 followed by the 161-lap Race itself at 11:15 (all times local/AEDT).
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