Tasmania Supercars: Brown storms to Saturday pole

The Erebus driver cruised through the first two segments of qualifying on the compact Symmons Plains circuit to give himself a shot a pole in the 10-minute dash for pole.

That became a game of strategy as the final 10 runners all looked for a tow along the two lengthy straights for their push lap.

Brown played the game to perfection, letting James Golding through and then following the PremiAir Camaro on the next lap.

That helped him storm to pole with a margin of almost two-tenths of a second in a session where all 10 cars were separated by less than five tenths.

"To pole it then was great," said Brown. "There was a few games going on down pitlane. I saw [Cam] Waters push back and push back in; I thought that was pretty clever by them.

"I was trying hold [the field] up, I thought if we bank them up enough, they'll end up not getting their two laps in. Everyone was playing games and then I went for it.

"Luckily enough Jimmy Golding was in front of me, so I got a bit of a tow there."

It was an excellent qualifying for Matt Stone Racing with team leader Jack Le Brocq sticking his Camaro a fine second on the grid.

Rookie Cam Hill backed that up with seventh in the second MSR entry, the best qualifying result of his short Supercars career.

Qualifying was dominated by the Chevrolet teams, with just a single Ford making it through to the final segment.

That was Waters, who was fastest in Q2 before ending up third on the grid.

Series leader Brodie Kostecki will start race 1 from fourth ahead of Andre Heimgartner and Broc Feeney.

Golding ended up eighth behind Hill while Shane van Gisbergen could manage just ninth, one spot ahead Scott Pye.

Chaz Mostert was a surprise omission from the final segment of qualifying, the Walkinshaw Ford driver just 11th fastest in Q2.

An in-form James Courtney was also bundled out of the second segment and will start race 1 from 15th, while Will Davison managed just 16th in his Dick Johnson Racing entry.

Some big names had issues in the very first segment of qualifying with reliability a problem for Anton De Pasquale for the second session in a row.

A clutch issue in practice 2 appeared to carry over for the DJR driver who ended up 22nd in his wounded Mustang.

David Reynolds, meanwhile, had a gear sensor issue that meant he couldn't flat shift, which left him down in 23rd.

The first race of the weekend kicks off at 3:50pm local time.