Garth Tander has struck back at the ITM Hamilton 400, taking pole for Race 8 of the V8 Supercars Championship Series.
The #2 Toll Holden Racing Team driver grabbed the top spot despite a huge run at pole by TeamVodafone’s Jamie Whincup on the final lap. Whincup was 0.2s faster than Tander to the second split, but caught Ford driver Dean Fiore on his last lap and couldn’t pip Tander’s time.
Tander was glad to get one back on Whincup, who won yesterday’s 200km race.
“A couple of key errors in the race – one from me and one from the team – gave Jamie the win yesterday and you can’t give a guy of that calibre that window of opportunity,” he said.
“Here we are now, we’re on pole, we reversed yesterday’s qualifying positions, hopefully we can reverse the finishing order too.”
Third place went to Fujitsu Racing Michael Caruso, equalling his qualifying result from yesterday.
Jack Daniel’s Racing star Rick Kelly grabbed fourth place ahead of Craig Lowndes (TeamVodafone), James Courtney and Steve Johnson (Jim Beam Racing), Will Davison (Toll HRT), Todd Kelly (Jack Daniel’s Racing) and Mark Winterbottom (Orrcon FPR).
Bundaberg Red Racing’s Andrew Thompson caused the one and only red flag of the session when he collected the inside wall on the exit of Turn 1. He went on to take a respectable 16th place, even though he only completed two laps!
The final 200km (59 lap) V8 race of the weekend will take place at 3.05pm this afternoon NZ time.
