Caruso tops plucky Mcleod for Sports Sedans pole

By Timothy Neal

Date posted: October 27, 2023

Jordan Caruso made it a season sweep of poles in the Precision National Sports Sedans at the Gold Coast 500 in a thrilling battle with Cameron McLeod in dicey conditions during an action packed session.

With the championship on the line over the next few days, the Audi A4 diced with the brand new MARC GT driven but the Super3 youngster, whilst a wary Ricciardello guaranteed a second row spot next to a flying Ashley Jarvis to set up a thrilling championship battle.

Heading into tomorrow’s first two races, Ricciardello holds a 59 point lead over Caruso in his legendary Alfa Romeo GTV, as he’ll look to take a 12th national title starting from fourth on the grid.

Jarvis has done himself no harm by taking P3, as he sits only one point behind Caruso in the title chase.

McLeod was close to taking pole on his Sports Sedans debut in the MARC GT SS

The qualifying session got going with a large amount of standing water on the track with all cars on wets, with dry lines only forming on the back side of the circuit.

The cars struggled for traction, as the left door of Nash Morris’ MARC Ford Focus found itself hanging off the car with a the black flagged, as four time QLD champion Chris Donnelly’s Falcon EL also got caught in the barriers to create a yellow flag sector, with McLeod holding pole over Caruso as a red flag was called with a 1:22.018.

Donnelly got the FL moving with action resuming leaving 8 minutes on the clock, whilst Championship leader Tony Ricciardello was still eight seconds off, whilst Steve Lacey’s #78 Chev was tucked behind the pit wall with issues.

At the resumption Fogg’s Mustang was very lively, whilst Ricciardello had good track position to put in a time, going second, +1.315 off McLeod with five minutes left.

Caruso went purple in the first sector on a flyer, to hold pole before McLeod hit back with a sub 21 to retake the front spot.

In a thrilling finish the spots got swapped again between the Audi and MARC GT with Caruso going 0.146 better and the final laps approached, with Jarvis moving into P3 over Ricciardello.