New Supercars Mustang 'lit' in qualifying trim

The Kiwi took provisional pole in straightforward fashion, an early lap proving good enough for him to park up with a couple of minutes left to run.

Triple Eight rival Jamie Whincup ran him close with a late lap, but fell 0.05s short of denying the new Mustang a dream debut.

With unknowns ranging from the new Mustang aero package right through to the category-wide ban on twin-springs, McLaughlin said the team really got on top of the Ford for that qualifying session.

"Today was really good," he said.

"Yesterday we started okay and then we had that [power steering] failure, so we had to sort of reset this morning.

"[We] started off with a race run, worked our way through it, then this evening for qualifying it was lit. It was awesome, the car was mint.

"It was the best it’s been all weekend.

"We’ve both been very comfortable with the Mustang straight away. It’s a good car, we’re just trying to make a few inroads with set-up and a few other things.

"Obviously the linear spring is a big talking point for everyone. I feel as a team, we’ve adapted really well and hopefully we can just build on it from here."

Whincup, meanwhile, was happy enough with second – and the 0.05s margin to the slippery new Mustang – particularly after a difficult test at Phillip Island a fortnight ago, and an equally tough opening practice session in Adelaide.

"It’s no secret we didn’t have a good test day at Phillip Island and yesterday was not nice either," he said.

"I didn’t really expect to be here to be honest, the engineers did a great job today chipping away, improving the Commodore.

"The car was fantastic, I’m very, very happy to be here."

He's also no discounting the chances of beating the Penske Mustangs in tomorrow's opening race of the year.

"Talk is cheap," he said. "We were P2 today, so we’re very happy with that.

"We’ll all do our job and be back tomorrow."

The first five rows of the Race 1 grid will be determined by a Top 10 Shootout tomorrow.