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Bathurst 1000 Highlights: Top Ten Shootout live updates, blog

Scott McLaughlin (Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)
Roar Guru
7th October, 2017
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1456 Reads

With the back half of the grid set, the top ten will have a one-lap dash to fight it out for pole position at Australia’s greatest race, the Bathurst 1000. Join The Roar for live coverage of the shootout from 5pm (AEDT).

As the poet William Blake once said, “Great things are done when men and mountains meet.” This indeed is how the Top-Ten Shootout to determine pole position for the Bathurst 1000 can be described.

With qualifying having been contested yesterday, the ten fastest drivers from that session will now challenge the all-important Shootout.

Each driver has one lap and the enormous 6.2-kilometre Mount Panorama circuit to themselves, as they attempt to qualify for pole position for the 1000-kilometre Enduro on Sunday.

The order in which the drivers go out will be the reverse of how the top ten finished in the 30-minute qualifying session on Friday.

Garth Tander will be the pioneer for Garry Rogers Motorsport, while provisional pole sitter Scott McLaughlin will have the agonising wait until the very end of the shootout to record his lap.

Lap records tumbled across Friday, with McLaughlin recording a 2:04.225 in the initial qualifying, to become the unofficial lap record holder at Bathurst.

The 24-year old Kiwi’s form in qualifying throughout 2017 has been unassailable, with a total of 13 pole positions to his name.

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As far as pole position at Bathurst, the DJR Team Penske driver is yet to record one at the iconic circuit, although he has been on the front-row.

Only four of the drivers in the Top-Ten Shootout have previously been on pole for the Bathurst 1000, and they are David Reynolds, Mark Winterbottom, Shane van Gisbergen and, of course, Tander.

In recent years, however, pole position has not equalled a race victory. In fact, it has not been since 2009 that pole has been converted to the win, demonstrating the ferocity of the race itself.

Since 2014, all the winners of the Bathurst 1000 have come from outside the top ten, which gives a glimmer of hope to those unable to contest the Shootout.

However, the importance of qualifying at the pointy end of the grid is to avoid getting caught up in the carnage that commonly occurs in the midfield during the early part of the race.

As far as picking which driver will be on pole, it is difficult to go past McLaughlin, considering his strong form so far during the weekend.

Could we see the Kiwi emulate his hero Greg Murphy and redefine the ‘Lap of the Gods’?

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Tune into The Roar for live coverage of the top ten Shootout from 5pm (AEDT), as we get set to determine who starts on pole for the great race.

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