Townsville Supercars: McLaughlin scorches to Saturday pole

With margins in thousandths throughout practice and the early stages of qualifying, McLaughlin turned up the wick significantly in the Top 10 Shootout.

Running last, the Penske Ford gapped the field by a whopping 0.2s to seal pole for today's 39-lapper – a huge turnaround after missing the single-lap dash this time last week.

"I'm really proud. That was a hard-fought one for the team," said McLaughlin.

"We obviously didn't have the best car last week, but we battled on and found a really good balance today. This is all credit to the guys.

"I've got confidence, I can brake deep and know what I've got. I've got a great car."

The next four positions were all separated by less than a tenth, Shane van Gisbergen falling on the right side of the stop watch to qualify second.

Cam Waters made up three spots in the Shootout to qualify third ahead of Anton De Pasquale, with Chaz Mostert dropping one spot to fifth.

Jamie Whincup was the biggest loser in the Shootout, dumping five spots to end up seventh between Brad Jones Racing pair Todd Hazelwood and Nick Percat.

Jack Le Brocq and David Reynolds will share the fifth row, the latter only making the Shootout with a last-gasp effort in Q2.

Cla	#	Driver	Time	Gap	Interval
1	17	Scott McLaughlin	1'12.014
2	97	Shane van Gisbergen	1'12.230	0.216	0.216
3	6	Cameron Waters	1'12.268	0.253	0.037
4	99	Anton De Pasquale	1'12.298	0.283	0.029
5	25	Chaz Mostert	1'12.306	0.292	0.008
6	14	Todd Hazelwood	1'12.341	0.326	0.034
7	88	Jamie Whincup	1'12.416	0.401	0.074
8	8	Nick Percat	1'12.473	0.458	0.057
9	55	Jack Le Brocq	1'12.552	0.538	0.079
10	9	David Reynolds	1'12.567	0.553	0.015
11	2	Bryce Fullwood	1'12.583	0.569	0.015
12	12	Fabian Coulthard	1'12.651	0.637	0.067
13	5	Lee Holdsworth	1'12.669	0.655	0.018
14	44	James Courtney	1'12.702	0.687	0.032
15	7	Andre Heimgartner	1'12.732	0.717	0.030
16	18	Mark Winterbottom	1'12.761	0.747	0.029
17	20	Scott Pye	1'12.767	0.753	0.005
18	19	Alex Davison	1'12.791	0.777	0.024
19	3	Macauley Jones	1'12.888	0.874	0.097
20	35	Garry Jacobson	1'12.955	0.941	0.066
21	15	Rick Kelly	1'13.015	1.001	0.060
22	4	Jack Smith	1'13.078	1.063	0.062
23	34	Jake Kostecki	1'13.168	1.153	0.090
24	22	Chris Pither	1'13.451	1.436	0.283
View full results