Hill's shock front row start renews Finals hopes

Cameron Hill stunned in Saturday's Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout at The Bend, going within 0.1023s of claiming a stunning pole position for the AirTouch 500 at The Bend.

The #4 Supaglass entry was the sixth car to roll out on track in the Shootout, and set what was at the stage a record qualifying lap with a 1:48.7571.

However, Broc Feeney became just the fifth driver in ATCC/Supercars history to claim five straight pole positions, however a front row start for the Canberran is a welcome return to form.

It comes following a difficult run across Townsville and Ipswich, which saw Hill fall outside of the Finals bubble following a strong start to the season, with the result breathing new life into his Finals hopes.

"It's a big shot in the arm, it's come at an important time, these next two events for us are really key to be making The Finals, we're just outside the bubble," said Hill.

"We always say this championship is all dependent on qualifying, so a front row start is setting us up for a good race.

"500k's is a long time, but at the same time it's still quite a short race, especially if there's no Safety Cars, so that'll have an influence. We saw the procedural test today, and it's new for everybody, so there's a lot of variables."

Hill currently sits 12th in the standings, 108 points behind Thomas Randle in 10th with 600 points on the line across the next two races.

Hill's season got off to a dream start when he claimed his maiden win in Race 6 at the Melbourne SuperSprint, leading a historic Matt Stone Racing 1-2.

There are similarities between Albert Park and The Bend, which both feature a fast, flowing, European-style layout, however the 28-year-old says that it wasn't a pure copy and paste job with the set-up.

"Yes and no, we did definitely say that this track was going to be quite similar to Albert Park, and we definitely looked at why we were good there, and tried to take a similar philosophy," Hill said.

"But at the same time, in that last practice I was really struggling, and I didn't have a representative lap on the board with 10 minutes to go.

"If you said I was going to be on the front row at that point, I would've probably gone, 'I think you're dreaming,' but we made small adjustments, and it's really close now with the Gen3 platform.

"Sometimes it is only a couple of small changes and you pop up 10 spots, so we're just trying to go through the process and learn from it."

Super2 rising star Cameron McLeod joins the 2021 Carrera Cup champion for the enduros this season, which could make for an interesting dynamic on the front row if the co-drivers start the race as expected. McLeod - making his third start tomorrow - would start alongside Jamie Whincup - starting his 560th race.

However, given his strong starting position for tomorrow's 102 lap race around The Bend, Hill is even daring to dream of an unlikely Ryco Enduro Cup win, which would guarantee a Finals berth with 25 bonus points to carry into the Elimination Final on the Gold Coast.

"The last couple of rounds were frustrating, we lost a few points on our nearest rivals, and it hasn't been much," Hill said.

"A tenth in qualifying is the difference between having a good day and a bad day, so we've never really lost hope, we've just kept plucking away and we definitely had this one circled as an opportunity to get back to the front.

"I'm looking forward to Bathurst as well, it's a track that I enjoy.

"One sure way to get into The Finals is to win the Enduro Cup, so we'll keep that in the back of our minds as well."