Prodrive Racing teammates Chaz Mostert and Mark Winterbottom have dominated qualifying for Saturday’s two Supersprint races at Barbagallo Raceway, ending an almost 50-race pole drought for the ‘Blue Oval’.
The duo took a front-row lockout for the seventh race of the 2015 V8 Supercars season, with Mostert just edging his more experienced stablemate by six-hundredths of a second as the new Falcon FG X continued to show strong pace.
The result marked Mostert’s first top-tier pole position, exactly two years since making his V8 Supercars debut and a year after claiming his maiden win in factory Ford colours.
Behind the two Prodrive Fords, the next four grid slots were claimed by Holden runners: Craig Lowndes, Garth Tander, Shane van Gisbergen and James Courtney completed the top six.
Series champion Jamie Whincup had a shocking run and will start from a lowly 21st place for the afternoon’s opening 25-lap race.
| 2015 V8 Supercars UBET Perth SuperSprint – Race 7 Qualifying Top-10 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Driver | Team / Entry | Time | |||
| 1. | Chaz Mostert | Pepsi Max Crew |  |
57.0403 | ||
| 2. | Mark Winterbottom | Pepsi Max Crew | |
+ 0.0603 | ||
| 3. | Craig Lowndes | Red Bull Racing Australia |  |
+ 0.0791 | ||
| 4. | Garth Tander | Holden Racing Team | |
+ 0.1420 | ||
| 5. | Shane van Gisbergen | Team Darrell Lea STIX | |
+ 0.1499 | ||
| 6. | James Courtney | Holden Racing Team | |
+ 0.1869 | ||
| 7. | David Reynolds | Bottle-O Racing Team | |
+ 0.2848 | ||
| 8. | Jason Bright | Team BOC | |
+ 0.2892 | ||
| 9. | Will Davison | Erebus Motorsport V8 |  |
+ 0.3785 | ||
| 10. | Tim Slade | SuperCheap Auto Racing | |
+ 0.4550 | ||
The second ten-minute qualifying session saw Winterbottom return serve, posting a rapid 56.90-second lap time to score pole position for Race 8.
Whincup bounced back from his race 7 qualifying disaster to claim a front-row start ahead of Fabian Coulthard, Lowndes and Mostert.
By contrast, one of Whincup’s main championship rivals, TEKNO’s Shane van Gisbergen, qualified just 18th-fastest.
The ever-consistent Courtney was sixth-fastest again, with David Reynolds, Will Davison, Rick Kelly and Tim Slade closing out the top ten.
It was a tough pair of qualifying sessions for the Volvo Polestar Racing outfit, which had neither Scott McLaughlin nor David Wall make the top-ten in either session.
| 2015 V8 Supercars UBET Perth SuperSprint – Race 8 Qualifying Top-10 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Driver | Team / Entry | Time | |||
| 1. | Mark Winterbottom | Pepsi Max Crew | |
56.9013 | ||
| 2. | Jamie Whincup | Red Bull Racing Australia | |
+ 0.0336 | ||
| 3. | Fabian Coulthard | Freightliner Racing | |
+ 0.1909 | ||
| 4. | Craig Lowndes | Red Bull Racing Australia | |
+ 0.1988 | ||
| 5. | Chaz Mostert | Pepsi Max Crew | |
+ 0.2324 | ||
| 6. | James Courtney | Holden Racing Team | |
+ 0.3558 | ||
| 7. | David Reynolds | Bottle-O Racing Team | |
+ 0.3628 | ||
| 8. | Will Davison | Erebus Motorsport V8 | |
+ 0.3679 | ||
| 9. | Rick Kelly | Nissan Motorsport |  |
+ 0.3984 | ||
| 10. | Tim Slade | SuperCheap Auto Racing | |
+ 0.4104 | ||
The first of two 25-lap races will get underway at 13:15 local time (GMT + 8).
Image via V8 Supercars Championship
Christian Hartung
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