Andre Heimgartner has taken his first Supercars pole position, the Kiwi topping the second of two qualifying sessions at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Having only used hard tyres in yesterday’s race, Heimgartner was well stocked on softs heading into this morning’s two 10-minute qualifying sessions.
His first effort was impressive enough, the Kelly Racing driver grabbing fourth for today’s first race, before an impressive 1m28.581s on his opening run in the second session netted a career-first pole for Race 3.
“It’s amazing,” said Kelly. “After yesterday we were struggling. And last time we were here we were struggling as well.
“We went away, we had a big think about it, the boys worked incredibly hard throughout all this stuff. Especially overnight, we managed to find seven-tenths just by tuning the car.
“I’m really happy. It’s amazing to boost everyone’s confidence in the team.”
The other pole went to Scott McLaughlin, the Race 1 winner using the set of softs he saved last night to set a 1m28.540s. He was then third quickest in the second session on that same set of softs.
Both Triple Eight drivers opted to throw one of the two sessions by running a hard tyre.
In the first session it was Jamie Whincup, the seven-time series champion adding to his woes by running wide on his final run, which left him just 19th.
He was then able to run a soft in the second session, falling a tenth short of Heimgartner in second.
Van Gisbergen went the other way, qualifying second for Race 2 – just 0.02s behind McLaughlin – but only good for 22nd on the hard tyre in qualifying for Race 3.
Nick Percat and the Fabian Coulthard were other notable mentions in the first session, taking third and fourth respectively and both with two sets of greens to play with today.
Percat managed sixth in the second session too, while Coulthard slipped back to 13th.
Mark Winterbottom and David Reynolds played their hands in the second session, the two Holden drivers fourth and fifth fastest respectively.
Qualifying Race 2 results
| Cla | # | Driver | Time | Gap | Interval |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 17 |  Scott McLaughlin | 1’28.540 | ||
| 2 | 97 | Shane van Gisbergen | 1’28.567 | 0.026 | 0.026 |
| 3 | 8 |  Nick Percat | 1’28.976 | 0.435 | 0.409 |
| 4 | 7 | Andre Heimgartner | 1’29.009 | 0.469 | 0.033 |
| 5 | 12 | Fabian Coulthard | 1’29.179 | 0.639 | 0.169 |
| 6 | 25 | Chaz Mostert | 1’29.190 | 0.650 | 0.011 |
| 7 | 35 | Garry Jacobson | 1’29.352 | 0.812 | 0.161 |
| 8 | 15 | Rick Kelly | 1’29.380 | 0.840 | 0.027 |
| 9 | 6 | Cameron Waters | 1’29.580 | 1.040 | 0.200 |
| 10 | 18 | Mark Winterbottom | 1’29.715 | 1.174 | 0.134 |
| View full results | |||||
Qualifying Race 3 results
| Cla | # | Driver | Time | Gap | Interval |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7 | Andre Heimgartner | 1’28.581 | ||
| 2 | 88 | Jamie Whincup | 1’28.694 | 0.113 | 0.113 |
| 3 | 17 | Scott McLaughlin | 1’28.774 | 0.193 | 0.079 |
| 4 | 18 | Mark Winterbottom | 1’28.941 | 0.360 | 0.167 |
| 5 | 9 | David Reynolds | 1’29.005 | 0.424 | 0.063 |
| 6 | 8 | Nick Percat | 1’29.013 | 0.432 | 0.008 |
| 7 | 55 | Jack Le Brocq | 1’29.038 | 0.456 | 0.024 |
| 8 | 25 | Chaz Mostert | 1’29.045 | 0.464 | 0.007 |
| 9 | 6 | Cameron Waters | 1’29.095 | 0.514 | 0.049 |
| 10 | 15 | Rick Kelly | 1’29.210 | 0.628 | 0.114 |
| View full results | |||||
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