Photo: Triple Eight

Shane van Gisbergen on provisional Adelaide pole while Jamie Whincup crashes

Shane van Gisbergen has claimed provisional pole position for the first Supercars championship race of the season in Adelaide ahead of tomorrow’s Top 10 Shootout. Things were worse for his team-mate and defending champion Jamie Whincup who crashed at high speed.

“Practice was going good, the car felt nice from the start and we just chased it all day trying to get a good tune up,” said van Gisbergen.

“It felt always fast but we just were just learning what the new aerodynamics required around a track like this. Qualifying went alright; a good session, we were in amongst it the whole time and ended up at the front. It was sad to see our teammate (Jamie Whincup) unfortunately have some issues, but the most important thing is that Jamie is okay. We can go ahead and fix that tonight hopefully.”

Whincup went into a slide at Turn 8, hitting the barrier hard and causing major damage to his brand new Holden ZB Commodore. The reigning champion sill managed to secure ninth position and Triple Eight Engineering has stated that the car is repairable for tomorrow’s shootout.

“I made a mistake, I was pushing hard and I was up on that lap, then I just pushed a little bit too hard on the least forgiving corner,” said Whincup.

“I was too wide and it bit me hard. There is a lot of damage to the car, more damage than I’ve seen in a long time on Car 1. The main priority now is to get it out for tomorrow but I think it’s 50/50 at this stage. We’re just doing an analysis at the moment. The chassis looks okay – if the chassis and the bird cage are both okay then we have a chance but if they’re bent then we are in big trouble so the next half hour is going to tell the story.”

The field was extremely close at the top with van Gisbergen snatching pole by a mere thousand of a second ahead of DJR Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin.

James Courtney made it two ZB Commodores in the top four in third place, just 0.0071 seconds from van Gisbergen while Mark Winterbottom claimed fourth for Tickford Racing, 0.0501 seconds from pole.

David Reynolds rounded off the top five for Erebus Motorsport, lapping the circuit in 1:20.4195 seconds with his Holden ZB Commodore, 0.1728 seconds from pole position.

The top Nissan Motorsport driver was Rick Kelly down in tenth position and was the final driver to make it into the Top 10 Shootout of tomorrow.