Vaughan steals pole from Gray, top seven covered by 0.07s
Brad Vaughan steals pole from points leader Rylan Gray in Ipswich
Top seven covered by 0.07s in super-tight session at Queensland Raceway
Lochie Dalton, Bailey Sweeny to share second row for Race 1
Brad Vaughan has snatched pole away from Super2 points leader Rylan Gray in a dramatic Boost Mobile Qualifying session at Queensland Raceway.
Vaughan, the 2022 Super3 champion, put in a flyer at the death to claim his first pole position for the season, and will start from the best possible position for the Century Batteries Ipswich Super 440.
Gray led the way in what proved to be a super-tight session, with the top seven covered by just 0.0688s.
There was light drizzle in pit lane as the field rolled out for the 20-minute session, and as a result it took several laps for the 23 car field to set representative lap times.
Series leader Gray went to the top early, however times continued to tumble as tyre temperatures increased.
Early running was punctuated by a red flag six minutes into the session after Ryan Tomsett had an enormous lock-up into Turn 3 and parked in the gravel.
Friday pacesetter Jackson Walls led the field at the time of the red flag on a 1:09.382, ahead of Vaughan and Cameron McLeod, Nash Morris, and Ben Gomersall.
With just over half of the 10 minute red flag allowance used to recover the #17 Mustang, with some using their new tyres immediately, and some remaining in pit lane to wait for theoretically better track conditions.
Cody Burcher soared to the top with a 1:09.2539s after the resumption, before Bailey Sweeny powered to P1 with a 1:09.2353s with three minutes remaining.
As Walls remained in pit lane, Sweeny went on with it with the fastest first sector, only to throw away his lap at Turn 3, before Gray nailed a 1:09.2217s courtesy of a brilliant final sector.
On what was his third push lap, Sweeny shrugged off the error to again light up the times in Sector 1, but was unable to knock Gray off the top after falling away.
At the last opportunity, Vaughan nailed a 1:09.2112s to put just 0.0105s on Gray, with the top seven covered by just 0.0688s.
Dalton, Sweeny, Burcher, Walls and reigning champion Zach Bates were all within 0.1s of the pole-winning time, with Gomersall, Morris and Cody Gillis rounding out the top 10.
The opening race of the weekend will begin at 2:45pm AEST.
