The Bend Supercars: Tyre trick helps Heimgartner to pole

In tricky wet conditions the Kiwi opted to stick to a single tyre set through all three segments of qualifying.

The idea was to retain tyre temperature rather than trying to get heat into new sets of rubber – and it proved to be a masterstroke.

Heimgartner was comfortably fastest in Q2 before sliding his way to a 2m07.856s midway through Q3.

Getting a time down early was critical as conditions worsened slightly at the very end of the session.

That meant Heimgartner's time was good enough to secure a second career pole position by two-tenths of a second.

"The car was great," he said.

"We went with the theory that if we kept the same tyres on I'd be able to work on my driving rather than having to pull the tyre temperature up each time.

"It's great for Kelly Grove Racing to get our first pole position this year, things are heading in the right direction."

Chaz Mostert will start from the outside of the front row, while rookie Will Brown put in an impressive performance to qualify third for Erebus Motorsport.

"It’s awesome, the boys have given me a good car," said Brown. "It was actually really nice to drive in the wet then. We weren’t as fast as the front guys but it was pretty cool to get P3.

“I said to the boys, ‘send it straight out there for the last run’ because I could tell it was just getting wetter and wetter, so get out there and do the time straight away and I think that ended up standing.”

Anton De Pasquale was the best-placed Dick Johnson Racing entry ahead of James Courtney and Will Davison.

There was a trio of title contenders next, Cam Waters seventh while points leader and wet weather specialist Shane van Gisbergen was just eighth.

Jamie Whincup and Brodie Kostecki rounded out the Top 10 while David Reynolds was the man on the bubble and will start 11th after just missing Q3.

Mark Winterbottom didn't even get a shot at getting through Q2 thanks to a power steering failure and will start 20th.

It was a horror session for Brad Jones Racing, the team's four cars filling the back two rows of the grid.

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Interval
1	7	Andre Heimgartner	Ford Mustang GT	2'07.856
2	25	Chaz Mostert	Holden Commodore ZB	2'08.068	0.212	0.212
3	9	Will Brown	Holden Commodore ZB	2'08.450	0.594	0.382
4	11	Anton De Pasquale	Ford Mustang GT	2'08.658	0.802	0.207
5	44	James Courtney	Ford Mustang GT	2'08.871	1.015	0.212
6	17	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	2'08.888	1.032	0.017
7	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT	2'08.894	1.038	0.006
8	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	2'08.903	1.047	0.008
9	88	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	2'09.219	1.363	0.316
10	99	Brodie Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	2'09.990	2.134	0.770
11	26	David Reynolds	Ford Mustang GT	2'07.419
12	20	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	2'07.517		0.098
13	55	Thomas Randle	Ford Mustang GT	2'07.881	0.025	0.363
14	3	Tim Slade	Ford Mustang GT	2'07.882	0.026	0.001
15	34	Jake Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	2'08.044	0.188	0.161
16	2	Bryce Fullwood	Holden Commodore ZB	2'08.405	0.549	0.361
17	27	Kurt Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	2'08.633	0.777	0.228
18	22	Garry Jacobson	Holden Commodore ZB	2'09.101	1.245	0.467
19	19	Fabian Coulthard	Holden Commodore ZB	2'09.696	1.840	0.595
20	35	Zane Goddard	Holden Commodore ZB	2'08.617	0.761
21	5	Jack Le Brocq	Ford Mustang GT	2'08.922	1.066	0.305
22	14	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	2'09.976	2.120	1.054
23	4	Jack Smith	Holden Commodore ZB	2'10.503	2.647	0.526
24	96	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB	2'10.600	2.744	0.096
25	8	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	2'11.152	3.296	0.552
26	18	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB
View full results