EASTERN CREEK, Australia — Chaz Mostert only made one run during ARMOR ALL Pole Qualifying for Sunday’s finale race of the Red Rooster Sydney SuperSprint, but he certainly made it count.
Mostert posted a flying lap of 1:29.4413 around the 3.905-km, 11 turn complex in his No. 55 Supercheap Auto Racing Ford Falcon with 13 minutes and 13 seconds to go in the 20-minute open session and never touched the track again after that, holding off a three-car Triple Eight Race Engineering onslaught in the closing minutes to notch his fifth Virgin Australia Supercars Championship pole of the season.
The pole is the 15th of the 24-year-old Melbourne native’s VASC career.
“There are some very fast guys out there, but our car’s dialed in this weekend,” Mostert said. “I was nervous. Shane was close and there were a few guys with quick micro-sectors. You can never be confident until after the checkered flag, but we were able to hang on.”
“It’s fantastic (to start on pole), but I really want to get that win. We saved that set of tires of today, so hopefully we can get it done.”
Shane van Gisbergen jumped to second on the speed charts with seven and a half minutes left and stayed there through the end of the session, his lap of 1:29.4760 coming up .0347 of a second shy of Mostert but placing him on the front row for the 200km event in the No. 97 Red Bull Holden Commodore.
Van Gisbergen’s teammates – Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes – timed in third and fourth, respectively, with Lowndes setting up on row two for his 600th career VASC race start.
The Volvos of Scott McLaughlin and James Moffat followed in fifth and sixth, ahead of Rick Kelly, Scott Pye, Michael Caruso and Fabian Coulthard.
Notables outside the top 10 included defending series champion Mark Winterbottom (11th), the HRT Holdens of James Courtney (12th) and Garth Tander (13th) and the Tekno Autosport entry of Will Davison (19th).
