Brown takes pole at Bathurst, Stanaway fifth

Red Bull Ampol Racing has locked out the front row for this evening’s opening race of the Bathurst 500, with Will Brown claiming the pole for his debut outing with the team.

Broc Feeney, who earlier qualified on the provisional pole, fell two-tenths short of his teammate’s time in the Top Ten Shootout and will start second.

Chaz Mostert is the first Mustang on the grid in third and starts next to Cameron Hill. Richie Stanaway is the highest-placed Kiwi on the grid and lines up fifth.

Ryan Wood missed out on partaking in the session after his final lap in the earlier timed run was invalidated for exceeding his best final sector time, while the last corner was under a localised yellow after Matt Payne was stranded in the sand. Wood will start tonight’s race in 14th.

Nick Percat was the benefactor of Wood’s demotion, elevated to tenth and the first to hit the track for the session. The Matt Stone Racing driver set a 2:07.3518 to begin proceedings.

Richie Stanaway immediately bettered that to go into the 2:06s, his 2:06.9732 then toppled by third runner Cameron Hill.

James Golding was then the first driver to lose places off his provisional position, dropping in behind Hill and Stanaway.

Having provisionally qualified sixth, De Pasquale was forced to lift coming over the mountain as the rear of the #11 DJR entry threatened to kick out. He, too, would lose ground to sit fifth of the five runners at the halfway point.

Hazelwood went to fourth fastest on his run before Mostert’s flyer displaced Hill at the top of the leaderboard.

David Reynolds was unable to complete his Shootout lap after a right-rear puncture was found on the Team 18 Camaro as it left the pit lane, dropping from third to tenth.

Brown then went on to claim the provisional pole and secure a front-row start, his 2:06.3740 two-tenths than Mostert’s previous benchmark, with only Feeney to come.

Feeney would not better this time, falling two-tenths short for second, giving the pole to Brown and topping Mostert by just 0.0069 seconds.

Today’s season-opener begins at 6.10 pm and will be shown live on Sky Sport 5.

Bathurst 500 Race 1 Starting Grid