SYDNEY, New South Wales, Australia — Report by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman — V8 Supercars photo —
If the qualifying results for the first of the twin-125 km races on tap at the Sydney Olympic Park were surprising, the polesitter for the second of those twin races was almost equally so.
Jason Bright shocked the masses with his flyer in the second of back-to-back ARMOR ALL Pole Qualifying rounds for the Sydney NRMA 500, knocking off champion-elect Jamie Whincup from the top of the pylon with his lap of 1:27.7889 seconds and hanging on despite the best efforts of Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen to claim the top starting spot for Race 37, his third V8 Supercars Championship pole of 2014.
The ARMOR ALL Pole Award was the 17th of Bright’s career and comes at a track where he is winless entering the weekend.
“I’ve had a bit of a funny weekend so far, because I’ve felt like that car has had a lot of potential but we’ve had trouble trying to put a lap together,” Bright said following qualifying. “The different sectors were there and when we felt like we were struggling at different times, I’d put the sectors together and it would look like we were alright. The same thing happened in the qualifying session, I got a really bad run on the back straight and it cost us quite a bit – so I knew if I put a nice clean lap together we’d have pretty good potential.”
The run was a rebound from the first session, where Bright qualified 11th for Race 36.
“We got caught out with the red flag. I basically had just crossed the line to start my flyer and then the red flag came out so I never got a lap there,” Bright said. “We’re definitely not where we should be for the first race, we’ve got to try and keep out of trouble in that one so we have a good car for the next one.”
Shane van Gisbergen’s final flying lap of 1:27.8721 seconds came up eighth one-hundredths of a second shy of a pole for the Kiwi, who was fastest in the day’s earlier practice session. Fellow New Zealander Scott McLaughlin followed in third at a 1:27.9056, securing third.
McLaughlin is in a battle for $10,000 as part of the season-long ARMOR ALL Pole Award. He currently has nine poles compared to Jamie Whincup’s ten on the season, ensuring that fight will go down to tomorrow’s final qualifying session of the year. Whincup qualified fourth for Race 37, right alongside McLaughlin.
Holden’s James Courtney completed the top five after qualifying 22nd for Race 36.
Mark Winterbottom, David Reynolds, Tim Slade, Garth Tander and Fabian Coulthard capped off the rest of the top 10.
Notables outside the top ten were Chaz Mostert in 12th and Race 36 polesitter Will Davison, who fell to 18th in the second session after only being able to muster a 1:28.8329 second lap.
Craig Lowndes, Marcos Ambrose and Lee Holdsworth will all start from the back of the grid after failing to make a qualifying attempt in the second session. Lowndes and Ambrose’s cars were heavily damaged in turn five during the first round, while Holdsworth had power steering issues and could never get the car on track in either session.
Green for Race 37 will take place at 4:40 p.m. local time.
