Anton de Pasquale opened his 2022 Supercars campaign on the right foot and starts tonight’s first race at Sydney Motorsport Park on pole.
The Dick Johnson Racing driver sauntered to pole, toppling what liked to be an unbeatable lap by Shane van Gisbergen.
De Pasquale was the last driver to post a time in the top ten shootout, courtesy of setting the fastest time in the day’s earlier qualifying session.
Despite van Gisbergen stopping the clock two-tenths better than anyone at the time, de Pasquale would go faster than the Kiwi in all three sectors.
The eventual margin between the two was 0.19s.
“Good place to start the year,” De Pasquale said.
“Rolled out today, gave it my best and the guys had given me an awesome car.”
Van Gisbergen was slightly puzzled at the end of the session on how to beat his rival but was still pleased with his time.
“That was probably one of my best-ever laps around here,” he said. “But Anton is so fast.”
Before then, Tim Slade pulled a solid lap out of the hat. Only eighth in qualifying, Slade improved on his earlier time by nearly half a second, good enough to land P3 on the grid.
Andre Heimgartner, returning to Brad Jones Racing this season, earned his best-ever shootout performance and starts from the outside of the second row.
“Really, really happy,” he said.
“I think fourth is probably a better place to start than third too.”
Will Davison made a costly mistake on his shootout lap and starts sixth. Joining him on row three is Will Brown.
There are some notable absentees from the pointy end. All four Tickford cars failed to progress from qualifying into the shootout.
Cameron Waters, who finished on the podium here last year, starts 22nd.
The 77-lapper begins at 9.10 pm NZT.
Starting positions:
- Anton de Pasquale
- Shane van Gisbergen
- Tim Slade
- Andre Heimgartner
- Will Brown
- Will Davison
- Brodie Kostecki
- Chaz Mostert
- David Reynolds
- Broc Feeney
- Bryce Fullwood
- Scott Pye
- Mark Winterbottom
- Nick Percat
- James Courtney
- Jack Le Brocq
- Todd Hazelwood
- Jack Smith
- Thomas Randle
- Garry Jacobson
- Macauley Jones
- Cameron Waters
- Lee Holdsworth
- Jake Kostecki
- Chris Pither