Sandown Supercars: Davison pole under investigation

Davison comfortably topped the single-lap dash for pole, coming from a tenth down on van Gisbergen in the first sector to end up nearly two-tenths clear of his Kiwi rival.

That followed a lap record-breaking effort in Q2 from the Dick Johnson Racing driver.

However race control quickly noted that Davison was under investigation for a pit exit breach.

TV footage then clearly showed that he crossed the chevron before the blend line while leaving the pits for his Shootout lap.

Despite the investigation, Davison was left elated with the fastest Shootout lap which, should it stand, will yield his seventh pole of the season.

"I love that," said Davison. "I haven't had that many opportunities in while, but I've had a few this year to nail a Shootout lap under the pump.

"At a track we probably weren't the best at last year, we worked even harder to bring a quick car here."

Will Brown ended up third on the grid followed by Anton De Pasquale. The DJR driver did qualifying the hard way, only progressing on his final runs in both Q1 and Q2.

He then made up five spots in the Shootout to end up fourth.

Thomas Randle was an impressive fifth following his massive crash at The Bend last time out, ahead of Mark Winterbottom, James Courtney and Jack Le Brocq.

Andre Heimgartner and Broc Feeney were the hard luck stories of the Shootout, the former running wide at Turn 9 and ending up ninth, while the latter used too much kerb in the final sector and had his lap deleted.

There were two big names that missed out on the Top 10 Shootout with Cam Waters and Chaz Mostert set to start 12th and 13th respectively.

Waters, who topped Practice 3, only missed out on the 10 by 0.01s.

"We're just on the wrong side of it," he said. "The car was good in Practice 3 in those greasy conditions but the balance wasn't quite nice there and I didn't really get it all together. It is what it is."

Nick Percat's qualifying woes continued, the Walkinshaw Andretti United driver left stranded in Q1 by a poorly timed red flag

Percat had been set to improve when James Golding went off at the first corner and got bogged with 90 seconds to go.

That left Percat stuck in 22nd on the grid.

David Reynolds was caught out by the red flag as well immediately after being held up by Jack Smith at the final corner.

That left him 24th from 25 cars, Reynolds left baffled that Q1 wasn't restarted despite there still being those 90 seconds on the clock.

"They just cut the sessions short," said Reynolds. "There's still a minute and a half left and we believe we can get around to do a lap. Otherwise I start stone motherless last."

Last on the grid actually went to Golding who was bumped to the back of the grid for prompting the red flag.

Both Reynolds and Golding did later make up a spot each, though, after Smith was bumped to the back of the grid for impeding Reynolds.