Tamasi on fire in tricky Sports Sedans quali
No one could compete with Steven Tamasi in a tricky Precision National Sports Sedan Series qualifying at Sydney Motorsport Park.
The session was split into two parts either side of a red flag caused by a heavy crash for Ryan Humfrey.
But when the session resumed, Tamasi and his Holden Calibra was a rocket ship, flying to pole with a 1:28.3607.
This was 1.5s clear of Brad Shiels, while Steven Lacey was almost 3s adrift with Matt Ingram and Daniel Crompton completing the top five.
The session began under gloomy skies and without championship leader Peter Ingram, who could not recover from the mechanical dramas that surfaced in Practice 2.
Geoff Taunton set the early benchmark with a 1:33.5221, but many were unable to respond as the reds arrived just five minutes into the session.
Humfrey had a huge crash, losing control of his ZE Falcon on exit of Corporate Hill and spun across the track. This sent him into a collision course head on into the inside concrete wall
With only three cars posting representative times and the session resuming with 5 minutes remaining, a frantic finish lied ahead.
Shiels was in a sticky situation going side by side out of Turn 1 with Duggan, while Purtell locked up in front of him at Turn 2.
Tamasi was enjoying some clean track and made the most of it, being the first to land a blow after the break, producing a scorching time that was 3s clear of the previous benchmark.
The Holden Calibra did not stop pushing and went 1.161s faster and 4s clear of the rest of the field.
That deficit was trimmed to 0.8146s by Shiels, who set that lap just before some yellows arrived.
Duggan and Donaldson both found themselves stopped at the hairpin, while Taunton spun on his own at Turn 6.
But the session continued and Tamasi lowered his benchmark to an impressive 1:28.3607, which was a second and a half clear of Shiels.
Lacey ended up settling for third ahead of Matt Ingram and Crompton.
The opening Precision National Sports Sedan Series race is at 12.35 AEST Saturday afternoon.
Precision National Sports Sedan Series Qualifying results
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