Garth Tander fastest in qualifying at Bathurst

Garth Tander was fastest of all in the qualifying session at the Bathurst 1000 in his HRT Commodore ahead of Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom as the ten contenders for pole position in tomorrow’s shootout are set.

Tander’s best lap was a 2:07.664, just five-hundredths of a second faster than his Ford rival. Jamie Whincup was third for Triple Eight, even though the team had to quickly repair Whincup’s Holden Commodore after the final practice session after he crashed at the Cutting on his in-lap.

Two Kelly Racing drivers made it into the top ten, but neither were the Kelly’s themselves, with David Reynolds qualifying fourth and Greg Murphy fifth, whilst Rick Kelly qualified 16th and Todd Kelly 19th.

Last year’s Bathurst champion Craig Lowndes for Triple Eight and last year’s series champion James Courtney for HRT were also in the top ten and will battle for pole tomorrow, as will Garry Rogers Motorsport’s driver Lee Holdsworth, Shane van Gisbergen for Stone Brothers Racing and Steve Owen for Paul Morris Motorsports.

Locked outside of the top ten and already setting their grid positions for race day are FPR’s Will Davison in 11th, GRM’s Michael Caruso in 14th, Jason Bright (BJR) in 18th and Steven Johnson (DJR) in 24th.

Grant Denyer qualified the wild card entry fifth Kelly Racing Holden, which will be shared with competition winner Cameron Waters in the race. Denyer qualified the car in 29th and last place, four seconds down on Tander’s provisional pole time.

The Top Ten shootout takes place at 15:45 local time on Saturday.