Will Brown grabs maiden Supercars pole ahead of second Sydney weekend
Will Brown carried his strong form from the first Sydney Supercars meeting into week two of the quadruple-header to grab pole position for the opening race of the weekend.
The first qualifying would run to a three-part format, with drivers given the choice of going with either the hard or soft compound tyre, unlike last week when only one tyre compound was in use.
The opening phase of the session was expected to be a relatively straightforward affair, but a big name would fall by the wayside in the shape of Anton De Pasquale.
The Dick Johnson Racing driver topped both free practice sessions as he looked to maintain the impressive form he had shown a week earlier but would instead drop out of qualifying at the first stage when his Ford Mustang got stuck in gear on leaving the pits.
With traffic proving to be an issue – as wildcard Kurt Kostecki found when he was forced off track in avoidance when he came across slower cars on a fast lap – most of the field would elect to run soft tyres for their quick laps in order to make it into Q2; the exception being Brodie Kostecki who would manage to set a time on hard rubber that was just good enough.
Scott Pye, Mark Winterbottom and Andre Heimgartner would all fail to make it on hard rubber with Luke Youlden and Fabian Coulthard also dropping out.
Q2 would largely prove to be a waiting game, with only Will Brown and Macauley Jones putting a time on the board before the remaining 18 cars headed out with a matter of minutes left to run.
With everyone bar Kurt Kostecki again running the soft rubber, Brodie Kostecki set the benchmark time to earn his place in Q3, with Brown, Shane van Gisbergen, Jamie Whincup, Will Davison, Nick Percat, Tim Slade, Cam Watersm Todd Hazelwood and Jack Le Brocq making it through.
That left Chaz Mostert and James Courtney to watch on from the sidelines having been hopeful of making it through, with Thomas Randle setting the 17th best time but with a three place grid penalty for impeding Kurt Kostecki in Q1.
Brown again went out early in the final phase of the session and put in the quickest lap seen in the session to date to set the target time, with the remaining nine drivers again waiting before going out.
Davison, van Gisbergen and Whincup all went close as they lapped within a tenth of a second of Brown’s time but his decision to run early would prove to be the right one as no-one went quicker – giving the Erebus driver his first Supercars pole.
Whincup will start from P2 ahead of van Gisbergan and Davison, with Brodie Kostecki maintaining his strong form from a week ago to grab fifth from Percat.
Slade, Le Brocq, Hazelwood and Waters rounded out the top ten; the latter failing to set a time after kerb strike.
