DAVID Reynolds has delivered Ford its maiden pole of the 2023 Supercars season, but many eyes were on another Gen3-first during Sunday’s Top 10 Shootout in Newcastle.
Tickford Racing now has the first rebuild of the new era on its hands after James Courtney crashed at Turn 7.
With the #5 Mustang the third car out on track for the Shootout, Courtney set the fastest first sector before clipping the inside wall and making heavy front-end contact on the outside.
The 42-year-old walked away from the incident, albeit unsure of whether he’ll be able to line up 10th on the grid.
“I don’t know how these new cars crash. We’re the first ones to try it out,” he said. “It’s disappointing. All that hard work, we had good pace this morning.”
Explaining the incident itself, he said: “There is oil down there so I was trying to get in as close to the wall as I could to get around on the inside.
“But I got too close, clipped the wall on the inside and the show was over.”
To that point, Broc Feeney had been quickest of the two cars to complete a lap, two tenths clear of Jack Le Brocq.
Todd Hazelwood lost ground with a scrappy lap before Chaz Mostert stormed into the box seat with a stunning 1:12.0871s, putting him 0.6530s ahead at the time.
Tim Slade, Shane van Gisbergen, James Golding and Cam Waters all came close in subsequent efforts, but Mostert could not be toppled – until qualifying fast man Reynolds rose to the occasion.
“Our car was pretty fast before qualifying before. The track is much slower so I just sort of buckled in and had a crack and it was alright, it was not too bad,” Reynolds said.
“A little bit messy here and there, not perfect, but good enough to be pole.”
The session ended with Reynolds on top ahead of Mostert, Golding, Waters, van Gisbergen, Slade, Feeney, Le Brocq, Hazelwood and Courtney.
Results to follow
