» V8s: Courtney on pole in tight shootout

James Courtney has won pole position in an incredibly tight Top 10 Shootout for Sunday’s 250-kilometre feature race of the V8 Supercars Championship’s season-opening Clipsal 500 at Adelaide. The fastest six cars in the one-lap qualifying dash were covered by less than one-tenth of a second.

With Courtney qualifying third-fastest in an earlier provisional session which saw series returnee Marcos Ambrose make the top-ten cut for the first time in his comeback, the HRT driver claimed provisional pole after knocking Saturday Race 2 winner Fabian Coulthard from top spot.

James Moffat was the penultimate man out after provisionally qualifying an impressive second-fastest in his Nissan. He clocked the fastest time up to the second sector, only to lose out in the final few corners and fall to fifth. Provisional pole man Shane van Gisbergen also fell just short and starts from sixth place, lapping just 0.096 seconds slower than Courtney.

Jamie Whincup and Scott McLaughlin ensured the would qualify in the top-four for all races this weekend and will share the second row of the grid. Seventh through to tenth on the grid were claimed by Garth Tander, Tim Slade, Marcos Ambrose (who hit the Turn 4 wall on his cool-down lap) and Jason Bright.

Ambrose made the ‘Top 1- Shootout’ for the first time.

Hitting the wall aside, Ambrose’s qualifying performance was particularly impressive after a pair of 24th-fastest efforts for both Saturday races. The Tasmanian was one of a number of drivers to post his quickest time in the dying seconds of the opening session, in which van Gisbergen lowered the track lap record even further.

The two-part qualifying session saw a number of notable runners fail to make the cut. Both Prodrive Racing Fords of Mark Winterbottom (11th) and Chaz Mostert (17th) qualified outside the top-ten, while series veteran Craig Lowndes (14th) also missed out.

The 250-kilometre Race 3 of the V8 Supercars Championship will get underway at 15:25 local time.

2015 V8 Supercars Clipsal 500 Adelaide – Race 3 Qualifying:

	‘Top 10 Shootout’	Team / Entry	Result
1.	James Courtney	Holden Racing Team / Holden Commodore VF	1:20.540
2.	Fabian Coulthard	Brad Jones Racing / Holden Commodore VF	+ 0.044
3.	Jamie Whincup	Red Bull Racing / Holden Commodore VF	+ 0.063
4.	Scott McLaughlin	Wilson Security Racing Polestar GRM / Volvo S60	+ 0.068
5.	James Moffat	Nissan Motorsport / Nissan Altima L33	+ 0.071
6.	Shane van Gisbergen	Team TEKNO Darrell Lea / Holden Commodore VF	+ 0.096
7.	Garth Tander	Holden Racing Team / Holden Commodore VF	+ 0.481
8.	Tim Slade	Walkinshaw Racing / Holden Commodore VF	+ 0.610
9.	Marcos Ambrose	DJR Team Penske / Ford Falcon FG X	+ 0.628
10.	Jason Bright	Brad Jones Racing / Holden Commodore VF	+ 0.693
	Preliminary Qualifying	Team / Entry	Result*
11.	Mark Winterbottom	Pepsi Max Crew Prodrive / Ford Falcon FG X	+ 0.336
12.	Rick Kelly	Nissan Motorsport / Nissan Altima L33	+ 0.346
13.	Lee Holdsworth	CS Racing / Holden Commodore VF	+ 0.440
14.	Craig Lowndes	Red Bull Racing / Holden Commodore VF	+ 0.467
15.	Michael Caruso	Nissan Motorsport / Nissan Altima L33	+ 0.524
16.	Dale Wood	Brad Jones Racing / Holden Commodore VF	+ 0.545
17.	Chaz Mostert	Pepsi Max Crew Prodrive / Ford Falcon FG X	+ 0.555
18.	Ashley Walsh	Erebus Motorsport V8 / Mercedes E63 AMG	+ 0.557
19.	Todd Kelly	Nissan Motorsport / Nissan Altima L33	+ 0.584
20.	David Reynolds	The Bottle-O Racing Team / Ford Falcon FG	+ 0.610
21.	David Wall	Wilson Security Racing Polestar GRM / Volvo S60	+ 0.642
22.	Nick Percat	Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport / Holden Commodore VF	+ 0.645
23.	Will Davison	Erebus Motorsport V8 / Mercedes E63 AMG	+ 0.776
24.	Andre Heimgartner	Super Black Racing / Ford Falcon FG	+ 0.893
25.	Tim Blanchard	Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport / Holden Commodore VF	+ 1.812