Waters storms to Taupo pole in the wet

Cam Waters has qualified on the pole in a wet Top 10 Shootout for this afternoon’s ITM Taupo Super400 opener at Taupo International Motorsport Park.

Worsening conditions throughout the session were of benefit for the early runners, with provisional pole-sitter Matt Payne only managing eighth quickest on a far more treacherous surface.

Championship leader Will Brown jumped from seventh to the front row, while Andre Heimgartner starts as the best Kiwi in third.

Ryan Wood impressed for fifth in his maiden Top 10 Shootout, gaining one place.

Having earlier qualified tenth, Tim Slade got proceedings underway as the first runner, setting the benchmark at 1:35.5591.

Heimgartner followed and bettered this by three-tenths before Cam Waters jumped to the top with a 1:34.7415

Will Brown fell three-tenths short of this as conditions worsened to provisionally slot into second, gaining a place over Wood, whose time was the slowest of the five who had taken to the track.

Cameron Hill also lost ground and fell in behind the Kiwi in sixth, before Will Davison ran long and lost significant time at Turn 9 to drop to the bottom of the top seven.

Chaz Mostert went faster than Davison to provisionally take seventh, one place ahead of where the following Anton De Pasquale managed.

Payne was the final runner and faced an extremely wet surface, which impacted his run, evident by his loss of nearly seven-tenths to Waters through the first sector.

The opening race of the ITM Taupo Super400 begins at 3.05 pm.

Supercars Race 7 Grid– ITM Taupo Super400

Image: Cam Waters in this morning’s qualifying session. Image: Neville Bailey