Waters scorches to Sunday GC500 provisional pole

CAM Waters has continued his stellar form at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500, topping a tight Sunday qualifying.

Ford’s resurgence following a pre-event parity change continued, with five Mustangs making it into the Top 10 Shootout.

After the first few runs, it was David Reynolds from championship protagonists Shane van Gisbergen and Brodie Kostecki at the head of the field.

James Courtney looked to be a key casualty of the session, losing control through the beach chicane and nosing into the outside tyre barriers at high-speed.

Courtney was able to limp back to the pits despite his bonnet blocking vision, to prevent a red flag intervention.

Tickford impressively was able to get the #5 Snowy River Caravans Mustang back out on track, with Courtney at least improving to 20th.

“I came out of Turn 4 and it was ’10.7’, I got a little bit excited, came into the beach chicane quite good, I thought it was alright,” he recounted.

“I went through the first part and then the last little right-hander, as I clipped, the tyre just turned me, which we haven’t had all weekend, then I just nosed her in.

“That’s my bad. Then the bonnet was up and the damage on the front, we couldn’t get a good run. It was self-induced, I’m given myself quite a bit more work this afternoon.”

It was better news on the other side of the garage with Waters surging from eighth to first with an excellent 1:10.4635s – almost four tenths quicker than his Saturday qualifying effort.

The Monster Energy driver delivered that benchmark with a minute on the clock and it would stand the test of time.

Will Brown came closest, 0.0243s adrift.

“We did a couple of little changes overnight, some were good, some were bad,” said Waters.

“The conditions are a little bit different to yesterday. I just had to put a lap together in the end there.”

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No one else knocked off Reynolds, van Gisbergen or Kostecki, while Chaz Mostert, Anton De Pasquale, James Golding, Matt Payne and Mark Winterbottom also made it into the top 10.

Golding improved late to bump Scott Pye out of the Shootout.

Further late flyers were scuppered by local yellow flags being shown for Declan Fraser at the final corner.

Thomas Randle, who was fourth yesterday, and Broc Feeney could do no better than 12th and 13th.

The Top 10 Shootout is next up at 11:35am local time (12:35pm AEDT) before another 85-lap race this afternoon.

Results: Sunday qualifying, 2023 Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500