The Giz whiz

Shane van Gisbergen has earned provisional pole on the Castrol Gold Coast 600, with the ARMOR ALL Top 10 Shootout still to come.

Last year's Saturday race winner has come out firing in his TEKNO Commodore, recording a 1min11.0913sec lap to snatch P1 from Sunday's 2015 winner Jamie Whincup by just 0.01sec.

"The cars just awesome on both sets of tyres," Van Gisbergen said, attributing the strong pace to engineer Geoff Slater.

Rick Kelly in his Nissan Altima was third fastest behind the Red Bull, with Scott McLaughlin, Tim Slade and Mark Winterbottom following.

Championship leader and Pirtek Enduro Cup front-runner Winterbottom said if there weren't scratches on his mirror, he wasn't doing a good enough job.

"We'll see if there's any scratches on the old mirror tune her up for the shootout," he said.

Craig Lowndes almost missed the top 10, putting his fast lap in after the chequered flag and knocking Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport's Nick Percat out of the running, the #888 ending the session ninth.

David Reynolds will be the first to set a time in the ARMOR ALL Top 10 Shootout, which is run in reverse order.

Click here for full session results.

The session set the grid for those outside the top 10, which sees James Courtney 13th and Cameron Waters 19th.