Kostecki powers to Gold Coast 500 finale pole

Bathurst 1000 winner Brodie Kostecki will start this evening’s Gold Coast 500 finale from pole next to his former teammate Will Brown.

Kostecki’s 1:10.3150 in this afternoon’s Top 10 Shootout was over two-tenths faster than the field, giving the reigning champion his 12th career pole.

Jack Le Brocq was the biggest mover in the shootout, jumping from eighth to third, where he’ll start alongside Chaz Mostert, who is looking to bounce back from a difficult race on Saturday.

Red Bull’s Broc Feeney and Kiwi Matt Payne, who qualified on provisional pole in the earlier time qualifying session, make up the third row ahead of Cam Waters and Richie Stanaway, the latter of whom starts directly behind his teammate.

James Golding and Ryan Wood complete the top 10, the latter having failed to have set a lap after incurring a kerb strike on his flyer.

Golding began the Shootout with a 1:11.4497 flyer, which was nearly a full second off the time that scraped him into the top ten.

Stanaway immediately bettered it by over four tenths, before Le Brocq jumped to the top with a 1:10.7369. Mostert fell just 0.0126 seconds short of the Erebus driver’s time to provisionally sit second.

An impressive 1:10.5986 from Brown was then set as the new time to beat, which reigning champion Kostecki managed on his flyer, going nearly three-tenths quicker.

A kerb strike through the chicane cost Wood, who lost his time and dropped from fourth to tenth. Feeney followed to set a 1:10.8197, which dropped him from third to provisionally fifth.

Saturday’s race winner Waters locked up at the final turn and crossed the line in sixth, before provisional pole-sitter Payne, the last driver to run, set a 1:10.8251, which placed him sixth and relegated Waters to seventh.

With three Kiwis in the top ten, Andre Heimgartner starts as the fourth best, in 17th, after crashing during timed qualifying.

Heimgartner wedged his BJR Camaro under a tyre barrier six minutes into the session. A 10-minute delay was required for it to be retrieved.

That delay was of benefit to Saturday’s runner-up Thomas Randle, who damaged his car on the Turn 3 barrier in the opening minutes but was able to repair it under the red flag. He had a later scrape with the wall before just missing on on the Top 10 Shootout.

Jaxon Evans, the fifth Kiwi in the field, lines up 21st.

The final race of the weekend begins at 5.15 pm NZST this evening.

Supercars Race 22 Starting Grid