Anton De Pasquale has continued his hot streak of pole performances at Sydney Motorsport Park, earning pole position for tonight’s race 29 event at Sydney Motorsport Park.
He will start alongside Jamie Whincup, with Will Davison and Shane van Gisbergen starting on the second row of the grid.
The rain that had been tipped to arrive in time for the shootout had narrowly missed the Sydney facility, meaning there would be no half-dry-half-wet session shenanigans.
Cameron Waters was first to take on the timesheets, delivering a compromised lap with a wide understeer-ridden moment at turn one. His time, a 1:31.965, was immediately pipped by Todd Hazelwood.
Hazelwood’s time, a 1:31.765, survived briefly, with Jack Le Brocq slotting between the Brad Jones Racing ace and his Monster teammate a few minutes later. Scott Pye couldn’t match Hazelwood either, a loose lap seeing him end up behind Waters.
Even Hazelwood’s teammate, Nick Percat, couldn’t beat him. Numerous drivers, including Percat, were reporting a lack of grip on the track thanks to the arrival of some sunlight. Indeed, times were over a second adrift from where they had been in qualifying.
Brodie Kostecki finally beat the Hazelwood marker via a 1:31.319, putting him a quarter of a second clear. It wasn’t a perfect lap, admittedly, particularly in the final sector where Kostecki had to deal with a few bouts of oversteer.
With Kostecki’s time done, the clouds started to roll in, most likely to the delight of the remainder of the runners. A cooler track could mean quicker times for the top four; consisting of both Shell V-Power racers and both Red Bull Commodores.
Will Davison was the first of the quartet to have a go. His lap appeared to be a very rough one, with mistakes at turns one and eight. Despite this, though, he was still a touch quicker than Kostecki to take over the top spot.
Whincup was next, and after the flawed laps of his rivals he delivered a very different, much quicker lap. There were a few sideways moments, but when the dust settled Whincup emerged with a 1:30.664; a whopping six tenths up on Davison.
Just van Gisbergen and De Pasquale were next. Having struggled through practice, there were questions whether van Gisbergen would be able to convert his qualifying pace. The answer was mostly a yes; the Kiwi registering a 1:31.273 to put him behind Davison following an error in the last sector.
This just left De Pasquale, who has dominated most of the category’s four-week Sydney Motorsport Park stanza. He too was dealing with a car moving around much more underneath him than it did in qualifying.
At the first sector he was a fraction down on Whincup. By the second sector he had reversed matters to be almost equal with Whincup. Clean through the final corner, De Pasquale was able to grab the pole. However, it was a far less dominant effort, with De Pasquale two tenths up on Whincup via his 1:30.453.
Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight, Race 29 Top 10 Shootout
1. Anton De Pasquale
2. Jamie Whincup
3. Will Davison
4. Shane van Gisbergen
5. Brodie Kostecki
6. Todd Hazelwood
7. Nick Percat
8. Jack Le Brocq
9. Cameron Waters
10. Scott Pye