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Bates takes pole in red flagged quali

By Thomas Miles

Championship leader Zach Bates has beaten his title rivals to pole in a shortened Super2 qualifying at Adelaide.

The top three in the title fight will be the top three on the grid for the opening race of the season finale.

But Bates has the advantage with his 1:19.8915 was a tenth clear of Aaron Cameron and Kai Allen.

Rookies Jarrod Hughes, Cameron McLeod and Rylan Gray had good pace to complete the top six.

The session ended in scary circumstances due to a crash for Rueben Goodall.

Goodall ran wide coming out of the Senna Chicane and whacked the wall on the right hand side.

The side-on impact was enough to tear the right-front wheel out completely.

As a result Goodall was in the unfortunate position of arriving at the end of Wakefield Street without brakes and used the gap in the tyre barrier in the run off to slow him down.

The impact was so severe that Goodall knocked out over the entire tyre barrier, concrete wall and catch fence over completely.

The incident ended the session and reports state that Goodall is okay and jumped into the medical car.

Determined to bounce back from Bathurst, Allen hit the ground running in qualifying.

Allen purple first sector 1:21.5648 was the best of the first laps, but only just ahead of Dalton and Cameron as 0.0338s covered the top three.

The reigning champion found a further half a second on his next attempt, but Bates and then Cameron responded emphatically.

Whilst the WAU driver just edged it despite a moment of oversteer in the final corner, Cameron shot the lights out.

The Kelly Racing driver fired a 1:20.3927 to end the early runs with a bang and enjoy a four-tenth advantage

Allen managed to muster a response with a fourth push lap to halve the deficit.

But it was the new championship leader that stole the show.

Bates finally recorded a complete lap and it was worth the wait, sneaking 0.0212s clear of Cameron to take the lead after the opening runs.

The fight for pole ignited with five minutes left with Allen setting two purple sectors, but he still could not improve from third.

The top three positions remained unchanged, while the likes of Hughes, McLeod and Gray threw themselves up to the first three rows.

Despite all the championship contenders being out, none could improve before the red flag was waved with two and a half minutes left due to Goodall’s unfortunate accident.

Qualifying for the second Super2 race will be held at 17.00 ACDT this evening.

Image: Peter Norton EPIC Sports Photography

Dunlop Series Adelaide Race 1 qualifying results

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