Rick Kelly shoots to Darwin Armor All pole

Nissan Motorsport’s Rick Kelly has claimed pole position for Race 11 at the CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown.

Kelly managed to bring an end to DJR Team Penske’s stranglehold on qualifying having taken the last six pole positions.

The Sengled Nissan clocked a 1:05.71s in his first run which proved enough to edge the DJRTP Ford Falcon of Scott McLaughlin.

McLaughlin was among a group of drivers to improve as the 15-minute session reached his climax, but the Kiwi fell just 0.05s shy of Kelly.

The pole position is a rich reward for the Nissan Motorsport squad that has struggled for consistent outright speed so far this season.

“The lap was really okay. I clipped a kerb and thought that I blew it, so to be first is obviously a credit to the guys with the car,” said Kelly, who scored a pole at Hidden Valley Raceway in 2015.

“It’s on rails at the moment, we’ve just got to put our head down now and make sure it’s pretty similar for the race.

“It definitely really suits us with that new surface.

“Obviously a long straight and a couple of areas for us are still a weakness but overall it’s a very strong track for us.

“Like I say, it’s a long race, 42 laps, and we’ve just got to make the tyres stay on it as best we can and see what we can do from there.”

Championship leader Fabian Coulthard will head up the second row, which he will share with the impressive David Reynolds in the #9 Erebus Motorsport Commodore.

Having struggled with the balance of his car, Shane van Gisbergen emerged as the top Triple Eight Commodore in fifth ahead of Brad Jones Racing’s Nick Percat.

Prodrive’s struggles continued with Chaz Mostert the best of the four car operation in seventh, with Cameron Waters 10th, 2015 champion Mark Winterbottom in a lowly 17th spot and Jason Bright in 20th.

“It’s only genuinely six corners here and we’re six tenths off the pace,” said Winterbottom.

“It’s probably a tenth every corner that’s doing it but motorsport’s frustrating; if you knew the crystal ball thing, you’d fix it, but we’ll look at more data, get more headaches, and try and fix it.”

Brad Jones Racing’s Tim Slade was eighth in front of Friday pacesetter Jamie Whincup who was ninth.

Lee Holdsworth narrowly missed out on the Top 10 as he headed Todd Kelly (Nissan Motorsport), James Moffat (Garry Rogers Motorsport) and Tim Blanchard (Brad Jones Racing).

After showing strong one lap pace in practice, Craig Lowndes remains towards the back of the grid in 19th.

Mobil 1 HSV Racing’s pace issues continued with James Courtney the top runner in 21st while Scott Pye was 23rd.

Jack Le Brocq was the fastest wildcard runner in 24th position.

The Supercars field will return for Race 11 (42 laps) at 1615 local time (1645 AEST).

Result: Virgin Australia Supercars Championship CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown Race 11 Qualifying