» Winterbottom on front row in Brazil

Mark Winterbottom will start from the front row of the grid for Sunday’s season-opening round of the Stock Car Brasil Championship, the Race of the Duos, at the Autódromo Internacional Ayrton Senna in Goiânia.

The Prodrive Racing driver made his debut at the shared driving event last year, finishing in third place.

Sharing the cockpit with local driver Marco Gomes just one week after sweeping to victory in all four non-championship races at the Australian Grand Prix, the pair finished second-fastest in a dry qualifying session.

With the series’ regular drivers going out first, followed by their invited co-drivers, the starting grid order was determined by the average of each pairing’s fastest lap times in the session.

Pole position was claimed by Átila Abreu and co-driver Nelson Piquet Jr in their AMG Motorsport Chevrolet Sonic, with Gomes and Winterbottom claiming second-fastest, three-tenths of a second slower in their Voxx Racing Peugeot 408.

“It’s been great for the team; front-row start is very positive,” Winterbottom said afterwards.

“We’ve made some changes to the car this morning and in qualifying I felt pretty uncomfortable, but Marcos did a great job. We can win the race, and I think we are in a good position.”

Reigning series champion and former F1 veteran Rubens Barrichello qualified 26th-fastest with co-driver and former F1 racer Ingo Hoffman, with the pair seeing their fastest time disallowed for ignoring waved blue flags.

Aside from Barrichello and Hoffman, the 33-car field features a substantial number of former Grand Prix drivers, including Jaime Alguersuari, Chico Serra, Luciano Burti, Enrique Bernoldi, Antônio Pizzonia, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Bruno Senna and Lucas di Grassi. Reigning FIA World Touring Car Championship winner José María López is also in the field, along with last weekend’s Formula E race-winner in Miami, Nicolas Prost.

Former BAR teammates Ricardo Zonta and Jacques Villeneuve will pair up for the first time since the 2000 Formula 1 season, driving a Shell Racing Chevrolet.

2015 Stock Car Brasil Race of the Duos – Final Qualifying:

	Driver / Co-Driver	Team	Time
1.	Átila Abreu / Nelson Piquet Jr	AMG Motorsport	1:24.234
2.	Marcos Gomes / Mark Winterbottom	Voxx Racing Team	1:24.539
3.	Valdeno Brito / Laurens Vanthoor	Shell Racing	1:24.632
4.	Ricardo Maurício / Nestor Girolami	Eurofarma RC	1:24.635
5.	Thiago Camilo / Lucas Di Grassi	Ipiranga-RCM	1:24.636
6.	Allam Khodair / António Félix da Costa	Full Time Sports	1:24.686
7.	Cacá Bueno / José María López	Red Bull Racing	1:24.732
8.	Felipe Lapenna / Vitantonio Liuzzi	Schin Racing Team	1:24.807
9.	Lucas Foresti / Luiz Razia	AMG Motorsport	1:24.841
10.	Vítor Genz / Matheus Stumpf	Boettger Competições	1:24.851
11.	Galid Osman / Beto Monteiro	Ipiranga-RCM	1:24.863
12.	Júlio Campos / Nicolas Prost	Prati-Donaduzzi	1:24.871
13.	Diego Nunes / Ricardo Rosset	Vogel Motorsport	1:24.874
14.	Felipe Fraga / Álvaro Parente	Voxx Racing Team	1:24.904
15.	Denis Navarro / Felipe Giaffone	Vogel Motorsport	1:24.952
16.	César Ramos / Frederic Vervish	Cavaleiro Racing Sports	1:25.069
17.	Sergio Jimenez / Fabio Carbone	C2 Team	1:25.044
18.	Ricardo Zonta / Jacques Villeneuve	Shell Racing	1:25.090
19.	Max Wilson / Vitor Meira	Eurofarma RC	1:25.199
20.	Antônio Pizzonia / Bruno Senna	Prati-Donaduzzi	1:25.225
21.	Gabriel Casagrande / Enrique Bernoldi	C2 Team	1:25.242
22.	Ana Beatriz / Matias Milla	RC3 Bassani	1:25.253
23.	Fabio Fogaça / Leandro Totti	Hot Car Competições	1:25.287
24.	Luciano Burti / Jaime Alguersuari	RZ Motorsport	1:25.335
25.	Tuka Rocha / Chris van der Drift*	RC3 Bassani	1:25.169
26.	Rubens Barrichello / Ingo Hoffman*	Full Time Sports	1:25.469
27.	Daniel Serra / Chico Serra	Red Bull Racing	1:25.419
28.	Rafael Suzuki / Antonio Perez	RZ Motorsport	1:25.578
29.	Alceu Feldmann / Ezequiel Raul Bosio	Boettger Competições	1:25.730
30.	Raphael Abbate / Nicolas Costa	Hot Car Competições	1:25.944
31.	Felipe Maluhy / Xandynho Negrão	ProGP	1:26.023
32.	Raphael Mattos / David Mufatto	Schin Racing Team	1:27.674
EXC.	Popó Bueno / Guilherme Salas**	Cavaleiro Racing Sports	excluded