Brodie Kostecki bags provisional pole at Bathurst
Brodie Kostecki topped the times in a record-breaking qualifying session for the Bathurst 1000 as the line-up for Saturday’s Top Ten Shootout was confirmed.
The reigning Supercars and Bathurst champion headed a tightly-fought session around the Mountain that saw the top six cars covered by less then a tenth of a second, whilst the quickest ten drivers all dipped below the Gen3 qualifying record that Kostecki himself set twelve months ago.
In a session where provisional pole changed hands multiple times, Kostecki left his best lap until the end of the session when his final flying lap at the wheel of the #38 Ford proved to be good enough to put DJR on top of the times.
Kostecki’s time of 2:04.0307s pipped current points leader Broc Feeney by just 0.0064s, with Ryan Wood slotting into third spot to continue to a solid week so far for the #2 Ford – which had topped the times in the first practice session of the week.
Anton De Pasquale was fourth quickest ahead of Cooper Murray, who had been amongst the pacesetters throughout the session but missed on a potential run to provisional pole when he made a small error on his final flying lap.
Having topped the fourth practice session, Chaz Mostert secured his spot in the shootout with the sixth best time, with Cameron Waters, Cameron Hill, Nick Percat and Tom Randle rounding out the top ten.
That means 2011 winner Percat will take a place in the Shootout for what will be his final appearance in the race as a full-time Supercars driver having announced he will end his time with Matt Stone Racing a year early when the current season draws to a close.
Given the close nature of the times, it was perhaps little surprise that a number of fancied runners failed to make it through to the Top Ten, including two of the top three drivers in the championship standings.
Will Brown could only manage twelfth quickest in the second of the Triple Eight-run cars, whilst Matt Payne struggled to 18th.
Saturday’s Top Ten Shootout will take place after the final two practice sessions, with the ten drivers going out in reverse order.
