Frustrated Randle left to rue messy qualifying

After finishing second in the opening race of the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500, Thomas Randle has been brought back down to earth after qualifying 11th for Race 22 of the season this afternoon.

It was a scrappy Boost Mobile Qualifying session, with the red flag for Andre Heimgartner's crash at turn twelve coming at an awkward time, and several drivers mentioning they could've performed better.

Chief among those was Randle, who was on the bubble of the top 10 in the dying seconds, before being bumped out by a last gasp flyer from Richie Stanaway, with Randle only 0.0018s away from making the shootout.

The 28-year-old was lucky to make it to the end of the session after having a close shave at the exit of the turn two chicane, smacking the tyre wall with enough force to require a race tape patch-up on the Castrol Mustang.

Randle's Tickford teammate Cam Waters, who dominated yesterday's race, provisionally qualified second behind Matt Payne, showing that the Tickford package is still formidable, which Randle was all too aware of.

"It's tough, we've got the car to do it, I just didn't do a good enough job on my lap," admitted Randle.

"I'm a bit pissed off at myself for rubbing the tyres, it was a pretty frantic session right out of the gate, it was bit chaotic and then the red flag, so it was a bit of a mad rush.

"We should be in the 10, but anyway we're not, so we'll try and use the race car's strengths in this 85 lapper later this afternoon."

With overtaking a notoriously difficult task at Surfers Paradise, it will be a challenge for Randle to make his way back into the podium fight this afternoon, however he is still confident a good result can come his way.

"It seemed to be pretty good on it's tyres yesterday, and it had quite good turn, so fingers crossed we can have that again today," he added.

"It's obviously going to be more tricky now we're back in the pack, but we've just got to get through the first lap and try and work our way forward."

The Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout for Race 22 of the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship begins at 11:35am local time/12:35pm AEDT, before the final race of the weekend kicks off at 2:15pm local time/3:15pm AEDT.