Waters pips Stanaway for Gold Coast opener pole

A quick 1:11.0581 flyer from Tickford star Cam Waters was enough to leapfrog Kiwi Richie Stanaway for the Gold Coast 500 opener’s pole position in this afternoon’s Top 10 Shootout.

Waters, who provisionally qualified third, leapt to the top as the eighth driver to run, and was not bettered by the following Chaz Mostert or Stanaway, giving him his sixth pole award of 2024.

Stanaway came the closest to getting the best of the Tickford driver, but ultimately fell one-tenth short. He will still start on the front row in this evening’s race.

Mostert will start behind Waters in third, next to Red Bull’s Broc Feeney, who has the opportunity to make up ground on his championship-leading teammate Will Brown, who crashed out of qualifying.

Thomas Randle and James Golding make up the third row, ahead of veterans James Courtney and David Reynold.

Matt Payne and Brodie Kostecki complete the top ten, the former having run into an escape road on his lap and the latter having his best deleted for a kerb strike.

Having qualified for the shootout in tenth, only after Will Brown had his best lap deleted after crashing in time qualifying, Kostecki was the first to run. A kerb strike at Turn 8 cost the Bathurst 1000 champion, however, who failed to set a time and remained confined to tenth on the grid.

Courtney was second to run and successfully set a benchmark of 1:11.9326, which gained him a place when the trailing Reynolds fell just 0.0268 seconds short.

Golding lowered the benchmark too 1:11.6441 as the fourth driver to run.

Payne threatened the time sheets with some blistering pace through the opening sector and was nearly three-tenths to the good when ran long at Turn 11, locking up and narrowly missing the wall as he ventured down the escape road. He returned to finish his lap well off the pace.

With his teammate out of the top ten, Feeney needed a strong lap to put the pressure on him in the title fight, and he did just that, going over three-tenths faster than the field with a 1:11.2944 flyer.

Randle wasn’t able to better this, but Waters was, flying to a 1:11.0581 to better the Red Bull by more than two-tenths.

Mostert scraped the wall twice on his lap, but hung on to slot into second, with only Stanaway to come.

The Kiwi was 0.08 seconds down on Waters through the first sector, but set the fastest middle sector overall to remain in contention for pole. He ultimately fell one-tenth short, but earns a front row start, his best qualifying result of the season.

The opening race of the Gold Coast 500 begins at 6.15 pm NZST this evening.

Supercars Race 21 Starting Grid

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