Garth Tander has claimed a surprise pole position for the final Australian Supercars Championship race of the season at Sydney Olympic Park after topping the timesheets in the one-lap Top 10 Shootout session.
In the lanky West Australian’s final outing for the Holden Racing Team, the veteran was third on track after provisionally qualifying eighth-fastest in Sunday’s earlier qualifying session. He posted an impressive 1:27.152 time around the challenging street circuit to go more than a second clear of the Shootout session’s earlier runners.
Incredibly, his effort couldn’t be beaten by the seven other drivers who followed, although newly-crowned champion Shane van Gisbergen came closest, falling just 0.01 seconds shy in the final reckoning.
Third-fastest went to Tander’s teammate James Courtney to continue the outfit’s strong weekend; the former series champion was quicker than Tander through the first two sectors of his flying lap before fading in the final stages.
Erebus Motorsport’s David Reynolds was a tremendous fourth-fastest ahead of Tim Slade, Michael Caruso, Scott McLaughlin, Nick Percat and Todd Kelly.
Six-time champion Jamie Whincup will start from tenth place after fluffing his Shootout lap early on by running wide at Turn 1.
The Sydney 500 continued to be a tough affair for the Ford Falcon runners, with not a single ‘Blue Oval’ driver making the Shootout. Outgoing champion Mark Winterbottom was the best of the group, qualifying thirteenth-fastest.
The 250-kilometre season finale – which will also be the last ever Supercars race at Sydney Olympic Park – is scheduled for a 15:40 local time (GMT +11) start.
| 2016 Australian Supercars Coates Hire Sydney 500 – Race 29 Top-10 Shootout Results | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Driver | Team / Entry | Result | |||
| 1. | Garth Tander | Holden Racing Team |  |
1:27.1524 | ||
| 2. | Shane van Gisbergen | Triple Eight Engineering | |
+ 0.0136 | ||
| 3. | James Courtney | Holden Racing Team | |
+ 0.1307 | ||
| 4. | David Reynolds | Erebus Motorsport | |
+ 0.2148 | ||
| 5. | Tim Slade | Brad Jones Racing | |
+ 0.2931 | ||
| 6. | Scott McLaughlin | Polestar GRM Volvo |  |
+ 0.3431 | ||
| 7. | Michael Caruso | Nissan Motorsport |  |
+ 0.5921 | ||
| 8. | Nick Percat | LD Motorsport | |
+ 1.1027 | ||
| 9. | Todd Kelly | Nissan Motorsport | |
+ 1.2824 | ||
| 10. | Jamie Whincup | Triple Eight Engineering | |
+ 4.4179 | ||
Image via Edge Photographics
Geoff Burke
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