SYDNEY, New South Wales, Australia — Report by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman — V8 Supercars photo —
A shocking upset and a pair of massive crashes characterized ARMOR ALL Pole Qualifying for Race 36 of the V8 Supercars Championship, the first of a pair of 125 km sprints making up the first half of the Sydney NRMA 500.
Will Davison claimed the top spot on the grid for the first sprint at Sydney Olympic Park, setting the stage for battles all throughout the field during the upcoming racing action.
The pole for Race 36 was the 17th of Davison’s career and his first since the Sandown 500 in 2013. It was also the first pole for Erebus Motorsport as a team since joining the V8 Supercars Championship.
Davison grabbed the pole after two high-profile drivers crashed hard into the turn five barriers.
Returning champion Marcos Ambrose and three-time champion Craig Lowndes both pounded the fence and skidded off at the turn six access road, with Lowndes’ car sustaining heavy damage to the right side of the Red Bull Commodore and leaving debris strewn down the straightaway in that section of the track. Both cars were too damaged to take part in the second qualifying session.
Red Bull team principal Mark Dutton said the Red Bull crew did not know if Lowndes’ incident was caused by a mechanical failure or if it could have been sparked by driver error.
“We haven’t heard anything from Craig apart from he’s ok and his apologies. Don’t know if it was a failure or going in too hot,” he said. “It looks pretty bad. It’ll be tight to get it perfect for the race.”
The crash brought out the red flag and ultimately ended the 10-minute session with a minute remaining, leaving Davison’s lap of 1:28.764 seconds as the time at the top of the pylon.
Behind Davison, champion-elect Jamie Whincup grabbed the other front row spot, clocking in second-fastest at a 1:28.8153 second clip. David Reynolds put down an impressive time for third on the grid, just one one-hundredth of a second off of the six-time champion. Tim Slade ended the session fourth for Supercheap Auto Racing and David Wall completed the top five in his Dick Johnson Racing Ford.
Notables further back on the grid for Race 36 include Scott McLaughlin (6th), Mark Winterbottom (8th), Chaz Mostert (10th) and Shane van Gisbergen (19th), who was fastest in the pre-qualifying practice session but was caught out by the red flag.
The pair of HRT Commodores were also bitten by the timing of the red flag, leaving Garth Tander and James Courtney 21st and 22nd, respectively, in the lineup.
Lee Holdsworth was unable to get out for the first session of qualifying, after encountering power steering troubles during final practice. He will start from the back of the grid.
Race 36 takes the green at 2:20 p.m. local time.
