Flying Kiwi tops shootout

The flying Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen has dominated the top 10 shootout to claim pole position for the Bathurst 1000.

The VIP Pet Foods Holden Commodore VF driver was astonishingly brave on a lap that was often only a few millimetres away from disaster as he blazed a trail between concrete walls across the top of Mount Panorama.

“I knew the track was going to be good for us. I just tried to put a clean fast lap together and it was good,” said van Gisbergen.

“Stoked for the guys, that was awesome.”

Indeed it was. No-one else could match his combination of skill and sheer commitment, not even fellow New Zealander Fabian Coulthard who had smashed Greg Murphy’s fabled Lap of the Gods on Friday on the resurfaced track.

On Saturday evening the Brad Jones Racing Lockwood Commodore driver made three crucial errors in his single lap solo run and dropped to fifth on the grid.

Ford hero Mark Winterbottom chance of claiming the first Falcon pole position of 2014 ended when he slid wide at the Dipper. But he still had the car speed to claim second on the grid.

The defending race winner and co-driver Steve Owen have shown pace all week and start favourite to win the 1000km test.

Why not van Gisbergen? Certainly his co-driver (and team owner) Jon Webb is as good as Owen, but the small Tekno team will have to do everything right to post a top result in a long distance race – something it hasn’t achieved previously.

Also making it to the sharp end of the grid were the Scott McLaughlin/Alex Premat Volvo S60 in third, the Jason Bright/Andrew Jones BOC Commodore in fourth and Craig Lowndes and Steven Richards in sixth in the only Red Bull Commodore to make the shootout.

His team-mate and championship leader Jamie Whincup missed out on the shootout when he crashed in Friday afternoon qualifying, a fate that also befell the fast Falcon of David Reynolds.

They were far from the only big names to fall, with Garth Tander and Warren Luff put out of the race after a brake failure on Saturday morning in practice ended with the Holden Racing Team Commodore on its side at turn two. The car collected Lowndes on the way through and the RBRA crew only just repaired it in time for the shootout.

It was the second time for the week #2 HRT car had been in trouble after Tander crashed on Thursday. Others to hit the walls included factory Volvo driver Robert Dahlgren, Cameron Waters in the Jeld-Wen Falcon he was co-driving with Jack Perkins and David Wall in the retro-liveried DJR falcon.

The new track surface was attributed much of the blame for the huge pile of damage bills. While providing grip on-line there was little or no traction once into the ‘grey’ - as Reynolds discovered.

As teams and drivers sought front to rear balance, complaints of unexpected and violent oversteer moments were common - just not everyone managed to save them.

The suitability of the FPR and Brad Jones Racing cars to the circuit was underlined by the fact Perkins and Dale Wood (Advam/GB Galvanising Commodore) joined their more stories team-mates in the top 10.

While Perkins made a last corner braking error and Wood was too conservative across the top, they emerged with cars unscathed and sitting in the top 10 on the grid for the great race.

Whincup, Reynolds and fellow factory Ford driver Chaz Mostert – who passed under red flags in qualifying and had his time scrubbed – have swapped positions with them and will have the task of finding their way through the pack.

At least they have 1000km to do it.