McLaughlin takes his eighth pole of the season at Barbagallo

Scott McLaughlin has qualified on Armor All Pole Position for the eighth time of 2019 ahead of Race 12 tonight at the Pirtek Perth SuperNight.

The Shell V-Power Racing driver was well clear of the field on the 2.42km Barbagallo Wanneroo Raceway as Jamie Whincup qualified second with a lap 0.4018s slower than McLaughlin’s best.

Tickford Racing locked out the second row courtesy of Chaz Mostert (#55 Supercheap Auto Mustang) and Cameron Waters (#6 Monster Energy Mustang) respectively, while Fabian Coulthard was fifth and Shane van Gisbergen seventh.

On a track generally regarded as being slower than the day prior, perhaps due to morning showers, McLaughlin got within a tenth of a second of his Friday pole time by clocking a 52.9052s on his only flyer of Part 3.

“That was a pretty good one,” said the championship leader.

“Great car and great team behind me, I’m so stoked just to continue the trend. Keep pushing on.

“It’s all about best execution and I pride of myself on doing that. Whenever you don’t do a good job you get angry; that was a pretty good one and feel proud to do it for the team.”

Whincup also had only one shot at the end of the session, due to a shortage of new tyres rather than by choice, but he stuck the #88 Red Bull HRT ZB Commodore on the front row in the final minute.

“Intense little session. Watching the top 10 go out and sitting there, it’s hard work,” he remarked.

“Anyway, car was excellent, we definitely made a gain from last night. Four tenths around here (McLaughlin’s margin), that’s another league, you know?

“I didn’t quite get the perfect lap, I reckon absolute maximum for us today was another tenth or so, but we’re not doing a 52:9s though.

“P2, we’ll try to launch off the start as quick as we can. Our tyre life was very ordinary yesterday so fingers crossed we can improve on that.”

Mostert was less than three hundredths slower again while Waters came all the way from Part 1 of qualifying having been penalised in Practice 3 for impeding Andre Heimgartner, when he had initially earned a bye to Part 2.

Coulthard had a slight moment in his #12 DJR Team Penske Mustang at the start of what would have been his final flyer and called off the lap.

Heimgartner was promoted to 10th in Practice 3 by Waters’ penalty and put that to good effect by qualifying the #7 Plus Fitness Altima in sixth, a position ahead of the #97 Triple Eight ZB Commodore of van Gisbergen.

Will Davison (#23 Milwaukee Mustang), Nick Percat (#8 Holden Guaranteed Value ZB Commodore), and Scott Pye (#2 Mobil 1 Mega ZB Commodore), who also came the long way from Part 1, rounded out the top 10.

Tim Slade was the last driver to be bumped from the top 10, by Waters, and will therefore take up 11th on the starting grid in the #14 Freightliner ZB Commodore.

He will be joined on Row 6 by the #9 Penrite ZB Commodore of David Reynolds, whose team-mate Anton De Pasquale also got stuck in Part 2 as he qualified 14th in the #99 ZB Commodore.

Mark Winterbottom improved six positions relative to his Friday afternoon qualifying effort to be 15th in the #18 Irwin Tools ZB Commodore.

“We got through — which was good — to the second one,” he said.

“We kind of de-tuned it a little bit; still just scraping in, we’re not quick enough.

“We can see where the time is, but we’re continuing to learn; we’re still early days but when you have a good result in Tassie (pole on the Saturday) and a couple of them you want to keep them going. Sometimes you go backwards to go forward.”

Macauley Jones looked like getting out of Part 1 of qualifying for the first time in his career before being pushed out of the top five in that stanza by Waters.

The rookie lost another place anyway when Simona De Silvestro improved but will start a season-best 17th in the #21 CoolDrive ZB Commodore.

De Silvestro qualified one position better having fallen only 0.0089s short of De Pasquale at the time in her #78 Harvey Norman Altima.

James Courtney (#22 Walkinshaw Andretti United ZB Commodore) was 20th for a second day in a row, Lee Holdsworth (#5 The Bottle-O Mustang) rounded out the Ford contingent in 22nd, wildcard Tim Blanchard (#77 Petronas ZB Commodore) took 24th, and Jack Le Brocq (#19 Truck Assist ZB Commodore) was 25th.

The Pirtek Perth SuperNight concludes with Race 12 of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, to be run over 83 laps/200km, back under lights from 1845 local time/2045 AEST.

Results: Armor All Qualifying for Race 12