Split second call lifts Mostert off bubble

He’s not out of the woods yet, but a strong run to fifth in the Townsville opener has Chaz Mostert raring for the weekend's 200km races.

The reigning champion charged from fourth to second on the opening lap in Friday’s NTI Townsville 500 opener, which was won by Cam Waters.

Mostert challenged Waters early on, before falling back into the clutches of Matt Payne and the slow-starting pole winner, Brodie Kostecki.

On lap 3, Payne made a bold move into the Turn 11 hairpin. Mostert defended his line, and they charged on the shallow line towards Waters into the braking zone. Mostert opened the steering and bailed out, allowing Payne and Kostecki through.

In response to the move, Mostert said to engineer Sam Scaffidi: “Sorry mate, that was so desperate, he was gonna take us out.”

Scaffidi replied: “All good buddy, let these two duke it out.”

Kostecki wasn’t as sympathetic to Mostert, saying in the bp Cooldown Room: “That was a good move. I liked that.”

Where he could have challenged Payne, Mostert made a sensible decision, which ensured he could fight all the way home with a straight race car.

Mostert improved his position to the Finals cut-line from 51 to 68 points, moving ahead of James Golding.

“Pretty stoked to start the weekend in fifth,” said Mostert, who jumped from 10th to ninth in the championship.

“Definitely a little bit of homework for us on the race car. Felt like we weren't as competitive as the four guys in front of us. But, it was a good opening day.

“Positive was our qualifying car was there, thereabouts, which we're pretty happy with. Now just gotta try and piece it all together and see what we can come up with overnight.”

It wasn’t the only nervy moment that worked out for the #1 Mobil 1 Optus Toyota on Friday. A suspected camshaft position sensor failure on the exhaust denied Mostert a second flyer in Q2.

But for a driver facing a battle of self-described "survival" to stay in Finals contention, Mostert was simply pleased to have qualifying and race pace after a season of inconsistency.

When asked about the issue, Mostert replied: “Actually don't even know what the guys really found.

“Just seemed to lose a little bit of performance at the end of that last qualifying lap. But, the guys were on it and fixed her up in the race, and it didn't skip a beat.

“Looking forward to the next two over the weekend. Hopefully we can make our race car a bit better and give the guys a bit of a run for their money out the front there.”

Track action on Saturday commences with Boost Mobile Qualifying at 11:35am AEST.