McLaughlin scores pole, Whincup 14th

Scott McLaughlin pipped Cameron Waters to ARMOR ALL Pole in a thrilling finale to the Top 15 Shootout at the OTR SuperSprint.

The Shell Ford driver topped all three segments of the qualifying session, earning the right to be the last to run in the one-at-a-time session.

McLaughlin’s 1:15.1994s edged Waters for pole by 0.0756s, in turn bumping Shane van Gisbergen to the second row.

“I nearly stuffed it at Turn 6,” admitted McLaughlin. “I was lucky to pull it up but luckily we were able to run a little bit wider there and use the track limits which definitely helped.”

Title contender Jamie Whincup will start 14th after running wide at Turn 8, leaving him facing an uphill battle in the 32-lap race.

“We just didn’t have the grip where we needed it and a bit of a combination of things but P14, not happy with that at all,” he said.

“It’s so cold here. We got the tyres up to temp in qualifying, we just couldn’t quite do it there for the Shootout.

“You can’t win the race from 14th. We’ll try to keep our heads up and do the best job we can and hopefully pick a few spots off but from P14 we’re pretty shot.”

Jack Le Brocq will start fourth, having been the first to run and set a time that proved the benchmark until Waters, who was seventh in the order, went quicker.

“It’s cool, we didn’t really know how we were going to go,” said Le Brocq.

“We only just scraped in with 15th in Q2 there. I suppose it came together and we pulled a lap out so hopefully we have a good race.”

James Courtney scored fifth on the grid, having briefly put Tickford 1-2-3 behind Waters and Le Brocq following his lap.

The next Shootout runners after Courtney – Fabian Coulthard, Chaz Mostert and Jamie Whincup – all struggled, ending up 15th, 12th and 14th respectively.

Van Gisbergen ran directly after Whincup and, although setting a time good enough for an eventual third, felt track conditions played a role.

“Someone has pulled a tricky there,” said van Gisbergen.

“The drop in the last few lap times, there’s just dirt all over the track so someone has probably done a bit of a funny there but it’s cleaning up now. It was a weird one.”

Sixth through 11th on the grid will be filled by Anton De Pasquale, Mark Winterbottom, Nick Percat, Scott Pye, Bryce Fullwood and Andre Heimgartner.

Lee Holdsworth had been 10th in Q2 but fell to 13th in the Shootout after a lap he summed up simply as “shithouse”.

Rick Kelly, Macauley Jones, Todd Hazelwood, Garry Jacobson and Alex Davison will start 16th through 20th, having each been eliminated in Q2.

David Reynolds’ run of poor qualifying results continued, with the Penrite Racing Commodore driver failing to get out of Q1 in 21st place.

He was later disqualified from the session entirely after his team breached parc ferme rules.

“My car is not fast. It’s pretty simple. We just haven’t had the pace all weekend," he said, having now failed to qualify in the top 10 for five consecutive races.

“It’s just little bits here and there, [Anton’s] car seems to be working better than mine. We’ll just look at it and make the best of what we can."

Also eliminated in Q1 were Chris Pither, Jack Smith and Jake Kostecki, who is this weekend back behind the wheel of the #34 Matt Stone Racing Commodore.

The 32-lap Race 28 of the championship is set to get underway at 3:40pm local time.