WILL Brown will start his first Supercars race as a Triple Eight driver from pole position after defeating teammate Broc Feeney in a Bathurst Top 10 Shootout.
Having played second fiddle to Feeney during qualifying, Brown turned the tables in the one-lap dash to collect the upped $5000 pole prize courtesy of Boost Mobile.
First on track was Nick Percat, who was promoted late into the Top 10 Shootout after Ryan Wood’s best lap in qualifying was deleted due to not observing yellow flags.
Percat opened the batting with a solid 2:07.3518s, which was quickly eclipsed by Richie Stanaway and Cameron Hill.
That trend did not continue, however, with Hill and Stanaway holding position atop the timesheets despite the best efforts of the next several contenders.
James Golding, Anton De Pasquale and Todd Hazelwood all tried and failed to match Hill’s stunning 2:06.7241s, leaving the nervous Canberran in the box seat in his very first Top 10 Shootout.
Hill was finally knocked off his perch by Chaz Mostert, whose full-commitment lap included a scrape of the wall exiting Forrest’s Elbow.
“That’s so fun,” Mostert exclaimed from the seat of his #25 Mobil 1 Optus Mustang after posting 2:06.5874s.
“God, I love this sport when the car is hooked up, so thank you to my team, thank you to my sponsors.
“Last year was tough, but it makes it all worth it when you can have a lap like that around here.”
From that jubilation, there was a mood change as Team 18’s David Reynolds super Saturday was tipped upside down, a flat tyre forcing him straight back into the pits at the end of his outlap.
Bad luck strikes David Reynolds as a tyre puncture forces him to not set a lap!#RepcoSC #Supercars pic.twitter.com/Jnz1dnnbKW
— Supercars (@supercars) February 24, 2024
“It was looking good, pressures were looking good on the monitor and we pulled out and drove to the end of pitlane and we’ve seen the alarm straight away and the right-rear is flat,” team principal Adrian Burgess reported.
“We’ve got a good race car. We don’t want to do any more damage.”
That left just Brown and Feeney to come, and Brown soon ensured Triple Eight would extend its perfect record of topping every session thus far in 2024, besting Mostert by 0.2134s.
Try as he might, Feeney was unable to usurp his teammate, forced to settle for second at two tenths adrift of the #87 Red Bull Ampol Camaro but just ahead of Mostert.
So, the top 10 order wound up: Brown, Feeney, Mostert, Hill, Stanaway, Golding, Hazelwood, Percat, De Pasquale and Reynolds.
Next up is Race 1 of the season, starting 4:10pm AEDT.
RESULTS: Top 10 Shootout for Race 1, 2024 Thrifty Bathurst 500
| Pos | No. | Driver | Team | Car | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 87 | Will Brown | Triple Eight | Chevrolet | 2m06.3740s |
| 2 | 88 | Broc Feeney | Triple Eight | Chevrolet | +0.2065s |
| 3 | 25 | Chaz Mostert | WAU | Ford | +0.2134s |
| 4 | 4 | Cameron Hill | MSR | Chevrolet | +0.3501s |
| 5 | 26 | Richie Stanaway | Grove | Ford | +0.5992s |
| 6 | 31 | James Golding | PremiAir | Chevrolet | +0.6962s |
| 7 | 99 | Todd Hazelwood | Erebus | Chevrolet | +0.8379s |
| 8 | 10 | Nick Percat | MSR | Chevrolet | +0.9778s |
| 9 | 11 | Anton De Pasquale | DJR | Ford | +1.0946s |
| 10 | 20 | David Reynolds | Team 18 | Chevrolet | NTR |
