De Pasquale and Gisbergen claim thrilling AGP poles
Anton De Pasquale and Shane van Gisbergen split the poles in thrilling back-to-back Supercars qualifying sessions at Albert Park.
Race 3 Qualifying
Qualifying at Albert Park started in thrilling fashion with Anton De Pasquale taking pole by just 0.04s.
De Pasquale was able to squeeze the maximum out of his Dick Johnson Racing Mustang to snatch P1 with a 1:49.3167 on the Hards.
Car #11 was followed by Brodie Kostecki, Shane van Gisbergen and Chaz Mostert in a competitive top five as just 0.0798s separated the heavyweights.
It is De Pasquale’s 16 pole and second at Melbourne and he said the timing could be sweeter after DJR’s Newcastle nightmare.
“It is good because the whole team has been working pretty hard and the lights at the workshop have hardly turned off since the last race,” he said whilst still sitting in car #11.
“So it is good to be at the front and reward them and we will try and do something similar in the races.
Anton De Pasquale will start race 3 from the front after scoring a special pole for DJR. image: EDGE Photographics
“It is a lot different to what we thought, but the guys have made some real good changes.”
All 24 cars rolled out on the hard tyre as soon as the green light appeared at pit lane.
Triple Eight’s Broc Feeney looked on course for a fast lap with a pair of purple sectors, but the lap went begging after a costly lockup at Turn 11, while Andre Heimgartner and Todd Hazelwood both went off.
After the dramatic first runs, Mark Winterbottom was at the top of the timesheets with a 1:50.1910.
He was a tenth clear of Reynolds, Kostecki, van Gisbergen and Chaz Mostert, but the #18 Camaro did have a scary moment at Turn 5 later on, which left some small damage and ruled him out of the session.
The Mustangs then showed great speed on their second attempts with Davison leading De Pasquale in a DJR 1-2 with just 0.0038s the difference.
Van Gisbergen could only manage ninth after finding the wall on the exit of the final corner.
Heimgartner also found trouble, going straight on for the second time in the session at Turn 3 and sat down in 20th.
With four minutes to go the entire field aside from Winterbottom hit the track and Courtney jumped to the top, edging out Davison by three hundredths of a second.
His Tickford teammate Cameron Waters also looked fast and displaced car #5 by half a second.
Waters was the first in the 1:49s window, but his lap did not stay at the top for long with a host of drivers setting scorching times.
Initially Kostecki went fastest before he was pipped at the post by De Pasquale, who emerged fastest after a thrilling finish where van Gisbergen and Mostert also gave it a red-hot crack
Race 4 Qualifying
Shane Van Gisbergen bounced back from a Practice 1 incident to take pole for race 4. Image: EDGE Photographics
The final leg of the back-to-back qualifying sessions also went down to the death and Shane van Gisbergen prevailed.
Van Gisbergen left it late, but set the fastest lap of the weekend of a 1:47.2537 to deny Will Brown by 0.0196.
The pair will form the front row for Saturday’s race 5 on the championship with Broc Feeney, Brodie Kostecki and Mark Winterbottom making it a Chevrolet top five.
Van Gisbergen was ecstatic to claim his first pole of the 2023 season having missed Practice 2 due to an earlier incident.
“The pole is pretty amazing,” SVG said.
“I cannot thank the guys enough, I made an error this morning and we missed a practice.
“We have to thank the #88 too, we went to their set-up in Practice 2, so it means a lot to come back like that.”
Unlike the first session, everyone bolted on the SuperSoft rubber to set the scene for the fastest session of the weekend.
The laps were immediately fast as van Gisbergen fired a 1:47s time to go into P1 with some battle scars still visible on his Camaro.
But Brown went 0.16s faster than van Gisbergen with a 1:47.4258 as Mostert emerged third ahead of fellow Fords Waters, Thomas Randle, Reynolds and De Pasquale.
The benchmark was lowered by a tenth when Feeney rewrote the purple sectors by lapping a 1:47.3326 time as cars reappeared from the pits after a tyre change.
He managed to see off challengers from Brown and Waters with little separating the leaders as kerb strikes caused headaches at Turn 10.
However, Brown bounced back to be in the box seat with his 1:47.5314 looking strong until the very end.
Van Gisbergen was down in eighth, but he snatched pole position away from Brown by going0.0196s faster in a thrilling finish.
Qualifying Race 3 results
1 Anton de Pasquale 1:49.3167
2 Brodie Kostecki +0.0401
3 Shane van Gisbergen +0.0716
4 Chaz Mostert +0.0798
5 Cameron Waters +0.2080
6 William Brown +0.3305
7 Jack Le Brocq +0.3325
8 Broc Feeney +0.3433
9 Matthew Payne +0.4423
10 Nick Percat +0.5388
11 Thomas Randle +0.6666
12 James Courtney +0.7136
13 Scott Pye +0.7406
14 Macauley Jones +0.7459
15 Will Davison +0.7465
16 James Golding +0.8044
17 Mark Winterbottom +0.8743
18 David Reynolds +0.9800
19 Andre Heimgartner +1.2729
20 Todd Hazelwood +1.2795
21 Jack Smith +1.4229
22 Cameron Hill +1.4288
23 Declan Fraser +1.7536
24 Bryce Fullwood +1.9437
Qualifying Race 4 results
1 Shane van Gisbergen 1:47.2537
2 William Brown +0.0196
3 Broc Feeney +0.0789
4 Brodie Kostecki +0.1140
5 Mark Winterbottom +0.1368
6 David Reynolds +0.2057
7 Cameron Waters +0.2580
8 Will Davison +0.2685
9 James Courtney +0.3914
10 Chaz Mostert +0.4198
11 Anton de Pasquale +0.4222
12 Thomas Randle +0.5118
13 Jack Le Brocq +0.6284
14 Scott Pye +0.6325
15 Matthew Payne +0.6633
16 Andre Heimgartner +0.7170
17 Nick Percat +0.7170
18 Declan Fraser +0.8580
19 James Golding +0.9181
20 Bryce Fullwood +0.9612
21 Macauley Jones +1.1099
22 Jack Smith +1.1262
23 Todd Hazelwood +1.2157
24 Cameron Hill +1.3153
2023 Australian Grand Prix Supercars schedule/running results
Thursday, March 30
11.25-11.55 Practice 1 – 1: Winterbottom 1:49.967 2: De Pasquale +0.151 2: SVG +0.207
13.15-13.45 Practice 2 – 1: Heimgartner 1:47.870 2: De Pasquale +0.021 3: Waters +0.046
15.10-15.25 Qualifying (Race 4)
17.45 Race 3 (19 laps)
Friday, March 31
15.55 Race 4 (15 laps)
Saturday, April 1
9.30-9.45 Qualifying (Race 5)
9.55-10.10 Qualifying (Race 6)
17.30 Race 5 (13 laps)
Sunday, April 2
10.25 Race 6 (13 laps)
For more of the latest motorsport news, pick up the latest issue of AUTO ACTION.
AUTO ACTION, Australia’s independent voice of motorsport.
