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The three surviving V8 Supercar championship contenders dominate the front two rows of the grid for tomorrow’s opening race at Surfers Paradise.
Championship leader Jamie Whincup will start from pole position for the first of three races in round 11 of the series, alongside his Holden nemesis Garth Tander.
The third man still in the title hunt, Ford’s Mark Winterbottom, will start on the second row after qualifying fourth fastest.
Holden surprise packet Paul Dumbrell was the interloper in what’s likely to be a championship-defining race, qualifying third quickest.
Whincup rocketed to a qualifying lap nearly eight-tenths of a second faster than Tander, who is the defending series champion and sits third on this season’s standings.
But there was no fairytale result today for Mark Skaife, the Holden hero.
Skaife, who is soon expected to announce his retirement from fulltime V8 Supercars driving, will start from 16th position on the grid for tomorrow’s opening race.
With the championship his to lose, Whincup is confident he is better prepared than last year.
In 2007 he was leading the title going into the Gold Coast round, only for calamity to strike.
The Team Vodafone driver missed out on the title by two points to Tander – everything unravelling for him with failures at Indy and the subsequent round in Bahrain.
Once again Tander is lurking with intent behind Whincup in third place, with Ford Performance Racing’s Winterbottom second and both able to win the championship should Whincup hit the skids.
But Whincup said he was not feeling pressure because of his defeat last year, rather he now knew what to expect and how to combat it.
“I’m better prepared for sure. Although I’m in the same position it feels like a completely different situation this year,” Whincup said.
“I don’t know why … maybe we were on the defensive last year. It’s just going to come down to who wants it the most, who’s hungriest.
“Every race from here on in is important. I wouldn’t say tomorrow’s race is the most important of the year, but it’s extremely important.”
Both Whincup and Winterbottom are chasing their maiden championship – Winterbottom entering uncharted territory as he has never been this close at this stage of a season.
“It’s a battle. The smartest guy, the toughest guy, the guy who fights the best is going to win it,” Winterbottom said.
Tander is the proven man who has handled the pressure successfully, and produced perhaps the year’s most remarkable drive to pinch an improbable victory at Phillip Island from one lap down.
And the 31-year-old was keen to apply some public pressure to his rivals despite sitting behind them on the standings and failing to pick up big points at Bathurst after co-driver Mark Skaife crashed out.
“Obviously the Bathurst result was disappointing, but we scored some points and we’re only 83 points behind – that’s less than 30 per cent of a round win,” Tander warned.
“We’re actually a lot closer than we were last year going into this phase of the championship.
“We’ve still got to find a bit of speed this weekend because we’re a fair way behind Jamie. But we’ll see what we can get out of the car.”
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