Mostert edges Whincup to first GT pole of 2021

Chaz Mostert has claimed pole position for the first race of the 2021 Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS season, edging Jamie Whincup in qualifying at Phillip Island.

Mostert laid down a 1:28.1481s at the end of a relatively long, single run in the #24 R8 LMS GT3 Evo which he is sharing with Tony Bates, giving early bragging rights to Audi Sport Customer Racing Australia.

Whincup achieved a best of 1:28.3657s to take second in the Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT3 which Prince Jefri Ibrahim will also be behind the wheel of.

Another Triple Eight Supercars driver, Garth Tander, earned third for he and Yasser Shahin in the #777 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo, which is set to share the second row with the Grove Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R.

With the starting grid for Race 1 determined by the fastest laps for each car across two qualifying sessions, and the big guns all being in Qualifying 2, it was therefore the latter 20-minute hit-out which was the one to watch.

Whincup was fastest after the first flyers with a 1:28.9903s to Tander’s 1:29.1082s, but his time at the top would be brief.

Tander set a 1:28.4950s next time around while Mostert jumped from sixth to second with a 1:28.6619s on his second flyer.

With Whincup already back in the pits, Tander improved ever so slightly to a 1:28.4872s, which was overhauled by Mostert’s 1:28.2857s.

The latter all but matched his new benchmark on his fourth push lap, setting a 1:28.3033s as Tander also returned to the lane.

Mostert then rolled out the 1:28.1841s before he too chose to put the cue in the rack, while Whincup took a different approach.

The seven-time Supercars champion came back out for another single-lap push, which yielded a 1:28.3657s and second on the grid for Car #888.

Tander did not go again, leaving him third, while Brenton Grove was a little over 1.2s further back in the #4 Porsche he is driving along with father Stephen.

Trophy class entrant Brad Schumacher had topped Qualifying 1 with a 1:30.2314s and, as it turns out, that would have been good enough for a third row start anyway.

However, being a solo driver this weekend, Schumacher himself got another crack in Qualifying 2 and grabbed fifth on the grid rather than sixth by driving his #55 Audi R8 LMS Ultra to a 1:29.9545s.

Paul Stokell secured sixth on the grid for he and Gary Higgon in another Trophy class car, namely the #124 Audi R8 LMS, by clocking a 1:30.0163s in the latter stanza of qualifying.

Rounding out the top 10 were Matt Stoupas (#23 Audi), Andrew Macpherson/Ben Porter (#51 Lamborghini), Brett Hobson (#96 Nissan), and Tony Quinn (#7 Aston Martin).

The first, hour-long race of the weekend starts tomorrow at 12:20 local time/AEDT, as part of Round 1 of the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships.

Results: Combined Qualifying

Championship class(es): PRA, AM
Trophy class(es): GT3