Primed for 100

Jamie Whincup has put himself in the perfect position to clinch his 100th race win at Queensland Raceway this afternoon, set to start from ARMOR ALL Pole Position.

His teammate Craig Lowndes – the most successful man at the ‘Paperclip’ – starts alongside the six-time champion. Lowndes was 0.0899sec behind Whincup’s 1min09.4113 but is saving a set of tyres for this afternoon’s 200km race.

Yesterday’s winner Shane van Gisbergen had the pressure on, down in 26th with three and a half minutes remaining, and could only manage fourth with his late dash, to start alongside Chaz Mostert.

Conditions are very different to yesterday, and van Gisbergen said his Red Bull crew didn’t quite make the right choices.

“Yesterday’s car was going to struggle, we tried to guess and didn’t quite get it,” he said.  

“The track’s different – not much wind, much hotter, much faster… we knew we had a good car we just had to put a lap down.”

Scott Pye has recovered from yesterday’s early practice crash – which was reported at 9g, causing $47,000 of damage after a brake line failure – and will start sixth.

Click here for the full qualifying results.

The 200km race kicks off at 2.05pm local time.