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Tickford ace Waters nabs Gold Coast 500 pole

3 minute read

Cam Waters will start from the top of the grid for the opening Gold Coast 500 race after setting the fastest time in the top-10 shootout.

Cam Waters. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

Cam Waters is primed to go back-to-back at the Gold Coast 500 after prevailing over his Supercars rivals to snare pole position for the first 250km race.

A year on from claiming a thrilling victory at Surfers Paradise, Waters was the third-to-last driver to have a solo attempt at the street circuit and his lap time of one minute and 11.058 seconds stood the test.

The Tickford star will start the first of two races at the top of the grid, finishing ahead of second-fastest Richie Stanaway by 0.117 seconds despite making side contact with the wall.

Championship contenders Chaz Mostert and Broc Feeney share the second row in third and fourth respectively.

But series leader Will Brown will start the race in 11th after crashing out in qualifying earlier on Saturday.

The Red Bull driver spun into the wall at turn 11 before suffering more car damage when Nick Percat and Tim Slade collided side-on.

Losing his spot in the shootout for bringing out the red flag, Brown was forced to make way for reigning series champion Brodie Kostecki.

"I've been locking rears in there for the last two sessions and just thought I'd get a turn but didn't. I just locked the rears and slapped the fence," Brown said.

"Unfortunately, I took a couple of other cars out of their quali, which is, yeah, sorry to them.

"These things happen. It's Gold Coast. We'll just press on and see where we end up."

Waters' Tickford teammate Thomas Randle was fifth-fastest in the shootout after falling short of transferring his blistering practice pace on Saturday.

Kostecki was made to relive his Gold Coast shootout nightmare, slapped with a kerb strike at the beach chicane after just 20 seconds into his solo lap.

Kostecki was relegated to the back of the top-10 at the street circuit last year after being hit with a kerb strike in the same place.

Matt Payne was also left kicking himself, going fastest in the first sector before running off at turn 11 into the escape road to condemn himself to ninth on the grid.

The first race of the weekend gets underway at 4.15pm.

RACE 21 TOP-10 SHOOTOUT RESULTS:

1. Cam Waters (Tickford Racing)

2. Richie Stanaway (Grove Racing)

3. Chaz Mostert (Walkinshaw Andretti United)

4. Broc Feeney (Triple Eight Race Engineering)

5. Thomas Randle (Tickford)

6. James Golding (PremiAir Nulon Racing).

7. James Courtney (Blanchard Team Racing)

8. David Reynolds (Team 18)

9. Matt Payne (Grove)

10. Brodie Kostecki (Erebus Motorsport).