Scott McLaughlin takes provisional pole for first Supercars race of 2019

Scott McLaughlin has launched his championship defence by claiming provisional pole for the first Virgin Australia Supercars Championship race of 2019, ahead of tomorrow's top-10 shootout. 

McLaughlin led a top 10 punctuated by four of the field's six Ford Mustangs. Fabian Coulthard was another of those to make the top 10, while Shane van Gisbergen also made it in. 

The main talking point of the session was the early crash at turn eight for Anton de Pasquale. The young gun crashed at the illustrious corner at high speed after clipping the inside wall and barreling into the outside wall. He had been one of the quickest drivers during practice, but would have to start from the rear. 

At the halfway point of the session, McLaughlin led on a very quick 1:19.598 over teammate Coulthard, Chaz Mostert, Jamie Whincup, and Cameron Waters. But there would be plenty of change in the closing minutes as the field fought to get into the top 10. 

The theory early was that anyone who posted a 1min 19sec lap-time would probably get into the top-10 shootout. And, with four minutes to go, that covered the top three; both Shell Mustangs, and Milwaukee Racing's Will Davison. 

In the final moments of qualifying, the key drama would be traffic. Van Gisbergen had the traffic of Simona De Silvestro to deal with, but he still somehow went from 11th to (a momentary) fifth. Former Adelaide 500 champ Nick Percat shot to third, getting shuffled back to fourth after Whincup leaped to second. Further down, James Courtney nipped in in the final seconds to round out the top 10 — subsequently knocking out Tim Slade. 

In the end, McLaughlin topped the session by five hundredths of a second over Whincup's late time, with Coulthard, Percat, Waters, Davison, van Gisbergen, Rick Kelly, David Reynolds, and James Courtney completing the ten. 

Behind Slade, the next closest drivers who missed out were Mostert and Andre Heimgartner. The big off-season driver swaps of Lee Holdsworth and Mark Winterbottom wound up 14th and 16th. Richie Stanaway completed the Kiwi contingent in 18th, one spot ahead of new Boost Mobile Racing teammate James Golding.

Results

1. Scott McLaughlin
2. Jamie Whincup
3. Fabian Coulthard
4. Nick Percat
5. Cameron Waters
6. Will Davison
7. Shane van Gisbergen
8. Rick Kelly, 
9. David Reynolds
10. James Courtney
11. Tim Slade
12. Chaz Mostert
13. Andre Heimgartner
14. Lee Holdsworth
15. Scott Pye
16. Mark Winterbottom
17. Macauley Jones
18. Richie Stanaway
19. James Golding
20. Garry Jacobson
21. Todd Hazelwood
22. Simona De Silvestro
23. Jack LeBrocq
24. Anton de Pasquale