Hedge on pole after dramatic Carrera Cup Qualifying
Callum Hedge will start the first race of the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Championship campaign from pole position after he outpaced rivals in a Qualifying session that ended in dramatic circumstances.
The Team Porsche New Zealand driver set a 1m 48.022s flyer to comfortably top the timesheets before Simon Fallon’s machine was left on its roof after an innocuous collision.
Fallon was among a group of cars vying for position in the closing stages of Qualifying when he clipped Adrian Flack’s Agas National entry, leading the former’s machine to tip over onto its roof. Fortunately, Fallon wasn’t injured.
The incident led to the second red flag of Qualifying, after the session was halted in order to retrieve Matthew Belford’s machine which became stranded in the gravel following a spin.
Max Vidau, who went fastest in Practice, will start alongside Hedge on the front row after producing a 1m 48.307s lap in his TekworkX machine.
Jackson Walls and Dylan O’Keeffe will start from the second row, both within half a second of Hedge.
Nick McBride qualified fifth despite a spin early in the session. Plenty of drivers found themselves in trouble at some point throughout the 30-minute period, as Porsche tails wagged similarly to the Supercars that hit the track before them.
Thomas Maxwell, Garnet Patterson, Christian Pancione and Dale Wood all earned spots in the top 10 with times under 1m 49s.
Bayley Hall rounded out the top 10 with a 1m 49.02s. Despite his spectacular crash, Fallon qualified 11th. Flack, who was also involved in the incident, was the quickest of the Pro Am drivers.
Angelo Mouzouris was back on track after spending most of Practice sidelined, but he will have plenty of work to do in the first race after qualifying 24th.
Race 1 will take place at 4:45pm AEDT this afternoon.
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