De Pasquale beats Whincup in Race 29 shootout
A blockbuster end to his shootout lap has helped Anton De Pasquale claim his 11th ARMOR ALL Pole Position of 2021.
De Pasquale, the fast man in practice and qualifying at the Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight, will share the Race 29 front row with Jamie Whincup.
Whincup will start two positions ahead of title combatant and teammate Shane van Gisbergen for Saturday night’s race.
Click here for Top Ten Shootout results
Will Davison split the Red Bull Ampol Racing teammates in third, with Brodie Kostecki fifth ahead of Todd Hazelwood.
The Top Ten Shootout was held under overcast skies, some three hours after qualifying was staged.
First man out Cameron Waters clocked a 1:31.965s, which proved 1.7s slower than his qualifying effort.
Todd Hazelwood laid down a 1:31.581s, a time which Jack Le Brocq, Scott Pye and Nick Percat all failed to shift.
Kostecki made the most of a break in cloud cover to go purple in the first two sectors, and undercut Hazelwood’s time by 0.261s.
Davison, who went quickest in the second and third sectors, survived a bobble at Turn 8 to pip Kostecki by 0.054s.
Minute by minute, the track continued to quicken, with Whincup going purple in the first two sectors to put almost 0.6s on Davison.
Van Gisbergen lost time due to a slide at Turn 7, and crossed the line a whopping 0.609s down on Whincup.
De Pasquale was line astern with Whincup through the first two sectors, but found 0.13s in the final sector to deny the seven-time champion a 93rd career pole.
"I was very happy I wasn't one of the first ones out, because it looked like hard work," De Pasquale said.
"The track was a big difference to qualy... I got to watch the first few and adjust.
"The track was a good second-a-half-off, so I had drive to that, feel out the last few corners and go from there.
"Jamie laid a good lap down so I had to push quite hard."
The 64-lap Race 29 will commence at 7:10pm AEDT. Click here to view the race schedule.
Every session of the event will be broadcast live on Foxtel (Fox Sports 506) and streamed on Kayo.
The Seven Network will provide live free to air coverage of the event. Tickets for the event are on sale now.
