The Giz takes Pole in Adelaide

IT’S AN all-Kiwi front row for the opening race of the Supercars Championship but not the one that many were expecting.

Shane van Gisbergen took the first pole of the year with a brilliant lap, but it will be Fabian Coulthard – not Scott McLaughlin – who will line up alongside him.

After Coulthard set a brilliant lap as the fourth man out, drivers tried and came up short in their attempts to unseat him. Van Gisbergen was up 0.19s in first sector and held most of that margin through the second, but an amazing last sector gave him a 1m19.5723s, and pole by 0.04s.

David Reynolds and Cam Waters started proceedings, the former driving neatly before Waters hung the Monster Ford right on the edge, nearly touching the wall at Turn 8.

Mark Wintertbottom was a big mover, his lap an improvement of 0.04s over his ‘proper’ Qualifying effort. Third man out, he gained over the second half of the lap with a 1m20.0176s.

Jamie Whincup followed, but fell short of Winterbottom’s time, before Coulthard, who started from pole in last year’s Sunday race, matched Winterbottom’s first split and took 0.23s out of it in the second. He was the first man into the 19s, with a 1m19.6165s, the fastest lap of the weekend to that time.

Chaz Mostert was up by a tenth at the first split and fractionally down at the second, underlining whata strong second sector Coulthard did.

James Courtney matched Coulthard in the first sector, and was down only 0.1s at the second. The third second cost him, dropping him behind Mostert.

Rick Kelly was quick in the opening sector but lost time with a slide at Turn 6, before McLaughlin rolled out. He was 0.01s down on Mostert’s opening sector and did the best second split of the ShootOut – before he locked the rears and missed the apex at Turn 9. That cost him 0.6s to Coulthard and dropped him back to sixth.

Saturday’s 78-lap race starts at 3:20pm.

Top 10 Shoot Out

1 Shane van Gisbergen            1m19.5723s

2 Fabian Coulthard      1m19.6165s

3 Chaz Mostert 1m19.8687s

4 James Courtney         1m19.9932s

5 Mark Winterbottom  1m20.0176s

6 Scott McLaughlin       1m20.0574s

7 Jamie Whincup          1m19.1604s

8 Rick Kelly       1m20.3544s

9 Cam Waters   1m20.3785s

10 David Reynolds         1m20.4829s