Jamie Whincup on pole for Newcastle finale after blistering shootout lap

Jamie Whincup has been able to salvage a good result for Triple Eight Race Engineering ahead of today’s final Supercars Championahip race of 2019 after taking pole for the 250km outing in the Top Ten Shootout.

Whincup has shown pace all weekend, going fastest in practice on Friday and qualifying yesterday, finally stitching it together when it counted to be on pole position for this afternoon’s 95 lap race.

The pole position comes as a stark contrast to the day of team-mate Shane van Gisbergen who qualified 18th for the race after a mistake in qualifying, being further demoted to 21st thanks to a penalty for impeding 23Red Racing’s Will Davison in qualifying.

As the tenth fastest qualifier earlier in the morning, Lee Holdsworth was the first car on track with green tyres on the Tickford Racing Ford Mustang. His benchmark time of 1:11.4599 was just over a second slower than the provisional pole time of team-mate Cam Waters, partly down to warmer track temperatures compared to the morning.

Off the back of a sixth place finish from last on the grid in Saturday’s race, Scott Pye was the first of the two Walkinshaw Andretti United cars to head out for his shootout lap. Faster than Holdsworth across all sectors, Pye’s time was the first under a 1:11, resetting the bar to be chased.

David Reynolds was next out for Erebus Motorsport, wanting to move up the order to break a dry spell of wins which stretched back 364 days. Despite going fastest in the first sector, a mistake in the middle of the lap put him down on Pye’s time at the end of his run.

Wanting to displace his team-mate at the top of the order, James Courtney matched the other WAU car to the first sector but struggled to keep the #22 on the road through the middle of the lap. The mistakes meant the 2010 champion wasn’t able to improve on anyone’s time, losing six-tenths to Pye through the lap.

Making his second shootout appearance of the weekend, Anton de Pasquale wanted to move his Erebus machine to the top of the order to salvage a good result after a power steering issue took him out of Saturday’s race. The strongest middle sector of the session so far put him in good stead but he lost time at the start and end, winding up just 0.037 behind Pye for pole.

Following de Pasquale’s lead and going out in the shootout for the second time in as many days, Tim Slade was Brad Jones Racing’s only driver in the session. With two quick and solid sectors to start the lap, a small error towards the end put him just behind the two Erebus cars but ahead of Holdsworth for provisional fourth.

Showing form on Saturday with a drought-breaking podium, Fabian Coulthard rolled the #12 DJR Team Penske entry out to try and secure pole. The Kiwi went fastest by a big margin to the first sector despite being on used tyre, again stretching the gap in the middle, giving him space to get away with a mistake at Turn 11 and take provisional pole.

Looking to cement his status as the pole king in 2019, Scott McLaughlin set out to chase his team-mate’s time, going equal to the middle sector in the DJR Team Penske car. With nothing in it at the end of the lap, McLaughlin ended up just 0.002 behind Coulthard, provisionally locking out the front row for the leaders of the team’s championship.

Provisionally on pole yesterday and seemingly flying the Triple Eight flag single handedly on Sunday, Jamie Whincup hit the track as the second last car on track. The seven-time champion tagged the tyre wall at the exit of Turn 1 but went far quicker than Couthard’s first sector, obliterating the time in the middle of the lap and finishing it off to take away pole from the DJR Team Penske cars.

Qualifying on pole in the Sunday morning session, Cam Waters was the last car to set a lap time, hoping to replicate his pace from earlier in the day. The Tickford Racing driver was on used Dunlop rubber, losing time at the start of his lap but gaining it back in the middle sector, slotting just behind Whincup when he crossed the line.

Whincup will start the last race of the season from pole position, carrying the weight of Triple Eight’s team’s championship bid with him as they sit 146 points down on DJR Team Penske whose cars start third and fourth.

Race 32 will start at 1615 local time and run for 95 laps or until 1815.