Shane van Gisbergen blitzed the field in qualifying for today’s opening race of the Sucrogen Townsville 400. The Kiwi lapped the Reid Park circuit in a blistering 1:12.51, which handed the Tekno Autosport pilot his third pole position for the season.
The 24 year-old was last on track in the Top-10 Shootout, and easily trumped FPR’s Will Davison by two tenths of a second. Davison will line up second on the grid after holding provisional pole for much of the shootout. Rounding out the top three was Fabian Coulthard for Lockwood Racing, who was on track for a front row start before a slightly slower final sector hampered his efforts.
Fourth was Jason Bright in the second Brad Jones Racing Commodore, three-hundredths of a second ahead of Mark Winterbottom in the second Pepsi Max sponsored FG Falcon. James Courtney will start sixth for the Holden Racing Team, in front of 20 year-old Scott McLaughlin at the scene of his Dunlop series round victory last year. Alex Davison was eighth-fastest in the shootout, ahead of David Reynolds and Tim Slade, both of whom made significant mistakes under hard braking in their respective laps.
Earlier, Shane van Gisbergen topped the time sheets in the 20 minute Q1 session with a 1:15.55 in the dying stages. Mark Winterbottom set the second fastest time, six hundredths of a second off van Gisbergen’s pace.
The story of the session was the failure of Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup to book a Top-10 Shootout ticket. The Red Bull Racing Australia pair will start from 12th and 16th respectively. Garth Tander will also be disappointed having only managed 15th in his HRT Commodore, while van Gisbergen’s Jonathon Webb struggled to 17th on the grid after a run of impressive finishes in recent rounds.
Rick Kelly narrowly missed a place in the Shootout for Nissan Motorsport, while his Norton Racing stablemates failed to make an impression in qualifying after a promising start to the weekend. The updated ’Nissan Hornets’ of James Moffat and Michael Caruso will start from a lowly 24th and 26th respectively.
The opening 200 kilometre leg of the Townsville 400 kicks off at 3:35pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.
2013 V8 Supercars Sucrogen Townsville 400 – Race 1 Qualifying Results:
| Driver | Entry / Team | T10 Result | ||
| 1. | Shane van Gisbergen |  |
VIP Petfoods / Tekno Autosports | 1:12.5139 |
| 2. | Will Davison |  |
Pepsi Max Crew / Ford Performance Racing | + 0.2373 |
| 3. | Fabian Coulthard | |
Lockwood Racing / Brad Jones Racing | + 0.2434 |
| 4. | Jason Bright | |
Team BOC / Brad Jones Racing | + 0.3940 |
| 5. | Mark Winterbottom | |
Pepsi Max Crew / Ford Performance Racing | + 0.4245 |
| 6. | James Courtney | |
Holden Racing Team / TWR | + 0.4418 |
| 7. | Scott McLaughlin | |
Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport | + 0.4817 |
| 8. | Alex Davison | |
Jeld-Wen Racing / Ford Performance Racing | + 0.6165 |
| 9. | David Reynolds | |
Bottle-O Racing / Ford Performance Racing | + 1.1972 |
| 10. | Tim Slade |  |
Heavy Haulage Racing / Erebus Motorsport | + 1.5630 |
| Driver | Entry / Team | Q1 Result* | ||
| 11. | Rick Kelly |  |
Jack Daniel’s Racing / Nissan Motorsport | + 0.3529 |
| 12. | Craig Lowndes | |
Red Bull Racing AU / Triple 8 Engineering | + 0.3543 |
| 13. | Tony D’Alberto | |
Team HIFLEX / Tony D’Alberto Racing | + 0.3745 |
| 14. | Chaz Mostert | |
Wilson Security Racing / Dick Johnson Racing | + 0.3750 |
| 15. | Garth Tander | |
Holden Racing Team / TWR | + 0.3897 |
| 16. | Jamie Whincup | |
Red Bull Racing AU / Triple 8 Engineering | + 0.4747 |
| 17. | Jonathon Webb | |
Darrell Lea Racing / Tekno Autosports | + 0.4766 |
| 18. | Lee Holdsworth | |
IRWIN Racing / Erebus Motorsport | + 0.4768 |
| 19. | Alexandre Prémat | |
Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport | + 0.5311 |
| 20. | David Wall | |
Wilson Security Racing / Brad Jones Racing | + 0.6092 |
| 21. | Maro Engel | |
SP Tools Racing / Erebus Motorsport | + 0.6155 |
| 22. | Russell Ingall | |
SuperCheap Auto Racing / TWR | + 0.7230 |
| 23. | Todd Kelly | |
Jack Daniel’s Racing / Nissan Motorsport | + 0.7632 |
| 24. | James Moffat | |
Norton 360 Racing / Nissan Motorsport | + 0.8611 |
| 25. | Scott Pye | |
EKOL Racing / Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport | + 0.9066 |
| 26. | Michael Caruso | |
Norton 360 Racing / Nissan Motorsport | + 0.9771 |
| 27. | Tim Blanchard | |
Wilson Security Racing / Dick Johnson Racing | + 1.1573 |
| 28. | Dean Fiore | |
Dodo Insurance / Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport | + 1.1926 |
* Denotes relative gap to fastest Q1 qualifier, Shane van Gisbergen (1:13.5569)
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Richard Bailey
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