Bright sweeps to provisional pole at Bathurst

Jason Bright has taken provisional pole at Bathurst, ahead of the two TeamVodafone pairs of drivers after a setting a 2:07.000 during qualifying, ahead of tomorrow’s top ten shootout.

In the hotter conditions in the afternoon’s qualifying session, drivers struggled to better their practice pace, but the BJR driver set a fast lap early in his run to be able to sit comfortably in the pit at the end of the session as the two TeamVodafone Holden’s went out to try and out-perform him.

Bright admitted he was surprised to be on the provisional pole:

“I didn’t expect to be quickest. We probably struggled a bit on greens; we had a crack on greens yesterday and really struggled to get the cars turned – it just wasn’t a qualifying car at all – I was very surprised to end up fourth after yesterday’s session,” said Bright.

More remarkably, the BJR car set its pole grabbing lap after a brush with the wall at Forrest’s Elbow, meaning there was possibly more to come in tomorrow’s top ten shootout.

“I came out of there (Forrest’s Elbow) and I reckon I was already looking at my dash, I sort of thought I was already well and truly on the track and just clipped the end of the wall…it all felt alright going down Conrod and so we still gave plenty into the chase and it still felt pretty straight and didn’t cost us a good lap.”

The Phillip Island winning pairing of Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife set the second fastest time, with Jamie Whincup & Steve Owen third.

Mark Winterbottom was top of the Fords in fourth, with only three Ford’s making it into the top ten, with championship leader James Courtney in sixth and Paul Dumbrell tenth.

The two HRT Commodores still have a shot a pole position tomorrow if they can find extra pace, with Will Davison/David Reynolds 7th and Garth Tander/Cameron McConville eighth.