Challengers on front row

The Championship chasers have locked out the front row, with Prodrive's David Reynolds and Red Bull's Craig Lowndes recording the top times in the day's second qualifying session at Pukekohe.

Separated by just 0.022 seconds, Reynolds claimed ARMOR ALL Pole Position from the 2015 Bathurst winner and took his third P1 start of the season for the second race at the ITM 500 Auckland.

"Just a bit of a lucky dip that session because we've never run a soft tyre here before," Reynolds said.

"The car was working well on hard tyre, tuned her for soft tyre and it was magnificent."

Prodrive stablemate and Championship leader Mark Winterbottom was back in sixth. He leads Lowndes by 258 and Reynolds by 318, with 75 points available per win today.

Scott McLaughlin and Jamie Whincup will start on the second row, Whincup earning pole for the first race on hard tyres.

"Used two sets of hards in the first one, not sure what the majority of the field did - so decided to go all out, good to get the pole," Whincup said.

"All in all happy to be on pole and top two rows of the grid."

James Courtney was the leading Walkinshaw Commodore in sixth position, while Kiwis Fabian Coulthard, Andre Heimgartner and Shane van Gisbergen were ninth, 12th and 13th respectively.

Cameron Waters' crew had to repair his Pepsi Max Falcon after clashing with Ash Walsh in the first qualifying session, but managed to get the car out in the closing minutes. Waters managed 10th.

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