Jonny Reid and Neil Foster claimed pole position at Pukekohe Park for the first Golden Homes North Island Endurance series three-hour race of the season.
Reid steered the International Motorsport Audi R8 GT3 to a 1.00.139s tour, edging Darren Kelly in the Aston Martin Vantage for the number one position.
The 20-minute session was held in the late afternoon, and the cool track conditions produced some rapid lap times.
Reid clocked his best time midway through the session. He then withstood a late flurry of laps by Kelly, which were all under the 1.01s bracket, to seal pole.
Kelly’s fastest lap was his penultimate effort and ended up 0.101s slower than Reid.
Defending champions Glenn Smith and John De Veth will start tomorrow’s three-hour race from the second row.
Andrew Fawcett will line up next to the McLaren in the second International Motorsport R8, though there was just over a second between the two cars at the end of the session.
The Hamilton Motorsport team will be thrilled with a fifth-place result in the first outing for the Nissan GT-R GT3, which this weekend is shared by Lance Hughes and Chris van der Drift.
New pairing Gene Rollinson and John Penny qualified sixth in the Lamborghini Gallardo GT3.
On pole for the one-hour is defending champion De Veth and co-driver Smith.
The duo drove their second McLaren GT3 and were comfortably quicker than John Midgley in his Ford SuperTourer.
Brock Timperley was three-tenths adrift in the other Ford SuperTourer. He is driving with John McIntyre this season.
The car is McIntyre’s ex-NZV8 championship-winning Falcon, which has since been souped up to match SuperTourer modifications.
Lochlainn Fitzgerald-Symes will start next to Timperley/McIntyre in his Porsche 997 GT3.
Both the one- and the three-hour race will be live on Sky Sport 8 tomorrow, while entry is free for all spectators.
