» V8s: Van Gisbergen storms to Townsville pole

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