Waters edges Feeney, Kostecki as Brown survives late scare

Cam Waters and Broc Feeney remained the benchmarks at the Thrifty Sydney 500 - Opening Round, leading Boost Mobile Qualifying as Will Brown avoided a scare to reach the Shootout.

Waters and Feeney, who have shared both front rows in Sydney and battled for victory on Saturday night, were separated by just 0.0928s.

Brodie Kostecki put his Dick Johnson Racing Ford into third, but the big story was the Houdini effort by reigning champion Brown, who snuck into the Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout by just 0.0018s.

"There wasn't really a little error, just a lot of understeer crept into the car," Brown explained.

"That first run we had a little bit but we were quite fast, we were second, and I was happy to leave the car, but on that first set of greens in the second part of qualy, I just pushed really bad at Turn 2 and lost a lot of time.

"I knew we'd have to come in and fit the used set of tyres, and though it;s going to be hard to get through, so to get in on that is awesome.

"We'll do a few tweaks, I think the Shootout will be interesting, it's going to be really hot, so I'm just glad we're in the the Shootout."

Cars rolled out under sunny skies for the 10-minute Q1 session, with Brown pulling into pit lane immediately. Feeney clocked a 1:30.0220s before Waters (1:29.6174s), Kostecki (1:29.9312s), Jack Le Brocq (1:29.9741s) and Anton De Pasquale (1:30.0095s) pushed ahead.

It was an impressive early marker by Waters, who had 0.313s on the field through the opening runs. Brown and Andre Heimgartner hadn't set a lap, with Macauley Jones, Jaxon Evans, Aaron Love, Matt Payne and Cameron Crick in the drop zone.

As the chequered flag flew, Brown vaulted to the top ahead of Thomas Randle, Waters and Feeney, with Payne and Kostecki also jumping towards the top. De Pasquale, who opened the weekend with the fastest time in Practice, went quickest with a 1:29.4172s.

Chaz Mostert, meanwhile, ended up 12th ahead of Kai Allen and Ryan Wood, with Evans, James Courtney, Jones, Cooper Murray, Richie Stanaway, Love and Crick eliminated. Evans, who finished 10th on Saturday night, missed a Q2 berth by just 0.028s.

All remaining drivers headed out for Q2 except Mostert, who opted to run off-sequence to the rest of the field.

Brown could only manage a 1:29.8106s as Waters (1:29.2090s) and Feeney (1:29.3018s) went to the top, with Mostert firing in a 1:29.3880s behind Kostecki (1:29.3756s). Brown was 17th, some 0.6s off the ultimate pace, and needed to beat Wood's 1:29.5944s to clinch a Shootout berth.

Le Brocq bumped Wood out, jumping to fourth with a 1:29.3824s. Brown needed to beat Randle's 1:29.5282s. He did, albeit by just 0.0018s.

"It's as high pressure as it gets. Crossing the line [Race Engineer Andrew Edwards] said that I had 15 seconds to get there, so trying to warm the tyres while going fast is hard to do a tyre prep, there was a lot going on," Brown added.

"I just need to sort out these qualifyings, I'm just really struggling here this weekend, so hopefully we can get it a bit better in the Shootout, and we had a fast race car in the race last night, so hopefully we can qualify a bit further up than we have been."

The top 10 drivers will return to the track for the Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout at 1:05pm AEDT, before the final race of the weekend at 4:05pm.