Whincup takes pole for Saturday Gold Coast race

Jamie Whincup has claimed pole position for Saturday’s 300km V8 Supercars race, setting a time of 1:11.6478 in the top ten shootout.

The Championship leader, who is paired with Sebastian Bourdais for the Gold Coast 600, was just 0.2252s faster than Ford Performance Racing’s Will Davison, who was provisional pole sitter going into the top ten shootout.

Rick Kelly will start in a season-best third for his 150th race start after an impressive performance in the shooutout. Michael Caruso finished the shootout in fourth for Garry Rogers Motorsport and will start ahead of Tekno Autosports’ Jonathon Webb who qualified fifth.

The top nine cars were separated by less than nine tenths of a second in the top ten shootout, with Shane van Gisbergen finishing 15 seconds behind after an off at the left hander at the end of the back straight on his shooutout lap.

The V8 supercars drivers and their co-drivers will line up for the first race at 13:40 AEST.