Townsville Supercars: Provisional pole for Whincup

The seven-time series champion set a formidable target on his opening run, his 1m12.019s the fastest lap of the weekend so far.

Knowing that was at least good enough to qualify for the Shootout, Whincup then opted to sit out the second run to save tyres.

Despite others improving on their second runs, Whincup was still able to cling on to provisional pole, the margin back to teammate Shane van Gisbergen just 0.005s.

"I'm certainly happy," said Whincup. "We made a little gain with the car and I got a clean lap in, which I didn't do yesterday. I got a bit of a tow off James Courtney as well.

"We were pretty confident we weren't going to go faster, so we sat [out] the last run."

Cam Waters was the best of the Fords, the Tickford driver promisingly close to the T8 Holdens with a 1m12.164s.

Rookie Will Brown booked his first ever Shootout spot with the fourth quickest time ahead of former enduro partner Anton De Pasquale.

David Reynolds continued his impressive weekend with sixth in qualifying, while Nick Percat left his run late, only banking his Shootout spot on his final lap. That came at the expense of Brad Jones Racing teammate Macauley Jones, who was bumped down to 11th courtesy of Percat's improvement.

Will Davison was eighth fastest as Todd Hazelwood and Tim Slade rounded out the Shootout qualifiers.

For the second day in a row Chaz Mostert was a surprise omission from the best 10, the Walkinshaw Andretti United driver set to start today's race from 12th.

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Interval
1	88	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.019
2	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.025	0.005	0.005
3	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.164	0.144	0.139
4	9	Will Brown	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.239	0.219	0.074
5	11	Anton De Pasquale	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.250	0.230	0.011
6	26	David Reynolds	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.272	0.253	0.022
7	8	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.334	0.315	0.062
8	17	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.351	0.331	0.016
9	14	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.363	0.344	0.012
10	3	Tim Slade	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.373	0.353	0.009
11	96	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.428	0.408	0.054
12	25	Chaz Mostert	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.446	0.427	0.018
13	2	Bryce Fullwood	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.456	0.436	0.009
14	20	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.462	0.443	0.006
15	5	Jack Le Brocq	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.517	0.497	0.054
16	99	Brodie Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.563	0.543	0.046
17	44	James Courtney	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.632	0.613	0.069
18	7	Andre Heimgartner	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.652	0.632	0.019
19	35	Zane Goddard	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.675	0.656	0.023
20	34	Jake Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.727	0.707	0.051
21	18	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.727	0.708	0.000
22	19	Fabian Coulthard	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.978	0.958	0.250
23	22	Garry Jacobson	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.067	1.047	0.088
24	4	Jack Smith	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.261	1.241	0.194
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