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Qualifying for Round 4 of the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Australia at Queensland Raceway set several new records for the category as Grove Racing junior and kart graduate Oscar Targett took his first pole position for the year.
The teenager edged out TekworkX Motorsport’s Nash Morris for the top spot in the dying minutes of the 20min session to be the fourth different pole getter in as many rounds. The tiny margin of 0.0012s was the closest ever.
For most of the session, the latter, who joined the series at Sydney Motorsport Park and claimed two race wins on debut, had been at the top of timing after Lachlan Bloxsom and Marcos Flack had set initial benchmarks.
Targett and Morris will share the front row for Race 1 tomorrow with Sonic Racing’s Flack and McElrea Racing’s Bloxsom on the second row ahead of last race winner TekworkX’s Aron Shields.
Behind them were Ronan Murphy (Sonic), who stopped an earlier practice session when he bunkered at Turn 6, Caleb Sumich (McElrea) with a personal best result, and points championship leader Marco Giltrap for Earl Bamber Motorsport.
Then followed Hamish Fitzsimmons and Pro-Am’s fastest, newcomer Ramu Farrell, Tom Taplin, Tom McLennan, Zac Stitchbury and Harrison Goodman with the top 14 split by just 0.7s.
Pro-Am points leader and second in class, Sam Shahin, qualified 15th and was within a second of Targett’s pole lap. Matt Slavin qualified third in Pro-Am with Richard Cowen just behind.
Reigning Class B champion Lachy Harburg took the top spot for the older-generation 991 GT3 Cup Cars in 18th outright and edged out Brad Carr.
The Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Australia field has two races sprint races on Saturday at 1:30 pm and 5:05 pm. Both races will be 20mins duration and be broadcast live on Stan Sport. The third and final race will be held over 45mins and will kick off the Shannons SpeedSeries program of events on Sunday at 9:10 am.
