Bathurst: Holden Racing Saturday report

Fifth Bathurst pole for Skaife as HRT lock down top spot for Mountain classic

Mark Skaife has scored his fifth career Bathurst 1000 pole position today at Mount Panorama after the fivetime race winner topped the timesheets in the pressure packed Top 10 Shootout.

Skaife, driving the #2 HRT Commodore that he will share with Garth Tander in tomorrow's 161lap race, set a 2m07.4221s lap, threetenths of a second clear of the FPR car of Jason Bright.

After topping the timesheets in Thursday practice, Friday qualifying and now the Top 10 Shootout on Saturday, HRT is well placed for tomorrow's race.

While Skaife may have scored pole position, he will in fact start from the third position on the grid the front row left vacant in memory of ninetime Bathurst champion Peter Brock.

While Skaife launched the lead HRT entry to the front row of the grid, Ryan Briscoe and Jim Richards spent the morning practice session further building themselves up for tomorrow's race.

They will start from 12th position after Richards narrowly avoided qualifying for the Shootout in yesterday's qualifying session.

HRT QUOTEBOOK

Mark Skaife (#2 Holden Racing Team Commodore VZ)
"One of the main reasons that the times today weren't matching yesterday is that you only have one go in the Shootout and you don't know the grip levels of each corner. You don't need much of a weather change to completely alter the grip levels. Our qualifying speed is indicative of the sort of real car speed you can have in the race. All week we've wanted to make the car relaxed and flow. We're comfortable with the race package and the speed of the car. For sure it will be emotional tomorrow. But as Peter Brock would say, we'll be having a red hot go tomorrow, that's for sure."

-credit: hrt