Penske Mustangs demoralize Supercar field in qualifying

David Coulthard will start 2nd, his Penske teammate 1st. The series tried to neuter the Mustangs but the Penske cars are making so much HP they had plenty in reserve.

Scott McLaughlin will start Race 11 of the Supercars season from pole position, the seventh time he has claimed it this season.

The Kiwi shattered the track record he had set earlier in FP2 by posting a stunning 0:52.814, claiming pole ahead of his DJR Team Penske teammate Fabian Coulthard by 0.212secs.

There are four Mustangs in the top five with Jamie Whincup breaking up the ponies by starting in third, despite having to progress from Q1 after stuttering in FP2 earlier.

Chaz Mostert and Cameron Waters, who also started in Q1, complete the top five as Whincup’s Red Bull Holden teammate Shane van Gisbergen starts in P6.

Despite his stunning lap, which is nearly two seconds quicker that the lap record before the start of the weekend, McLaughlin believed he could go even quicker.

"The lap was awesome. I wanted to go faster and I had a chance [because] I saved a set from the first session," he said.

"I wanted to go as fast as I could and managed to go a bit quicker too.

The Penske team gets ready to go out and demoralize the field

"The car was hooked, Ludo [Lacroix, engineer] is an absolute wizard, I’m very lucky to have him on my team."

Jamie Whincup was pleased with his resurgence after topping practice on Thursday to coming through all three stages of qualifying to start on the second row.

"The car is reasonable, but we keep making little errors that make it hard for ourselves," Whincup said.

"Eventually when we could show our speed in the end there we were P3, best of the rest.

"We made a heap of changes all the way through trying to get the car back in the window from where it was in practice."

The resurfaced track is provided some stunning lap times but Race 11 will be held under the cover of darkness for the first time this season, of which the drivers have only had one session of practice in – on Thursday evening.

Lineup

POS	#	DRIVER	TEAM	BEST LAP	GAP	LAPS
1	17	McLaughlin	Shell V-Power Racing Team	52.814	+0.000	7
2	12	Coulthard	Shell V-Power Racing Team	53.027	+0.212	6
3	88	Whincup	Red Bull Holden Racing Australia	53.122	+0.308	11
4	55	Mostert	Supercheap Auto Racing	53.131	+0.316	10
5	6	C. Waters	Tickford Racing	53.189	+0.375	13
6	97	Van Gisbergen	Red Bull Holden Racing Australia	53.283	+0.469	8
7	8	Percat	Brad Jones Racing	53.315	+0.501	7
8	9	Reynolds	Erebus Motorsport	53.354	+0.540	12
9	14	Slade	Brad Jones Racing	53.368	+0.554	9
10	23	Davison	Monster Energy Racing	53.467	+0.653	13
11	99	A. de Pasquale	Erebus Motorsport	53.580	+0.766	10
12	5	Holdsworth	The Bottle-O Racing Team	53.598	+0.784	6
13	7	Heimgartner	Nissan Motorsport	53.610	+0.796	7
14	15	R. Kelly	Nissan Motorsport	53.714	+0.900	7
15	33	R. Stanaway	Wilson Security Racing GRM	53.978	+1.164	14
16	3	G. Jacobson	Nissan Nismo	53.565	+0.751	5
17	78	S. De Silvestro	Nissan Nismo	53.574	+0.760	6
18	34	J. Golding	Wilson Security Racing GRM	53.612	+0.798	7
19	35	T. Hazelwood	Bigmate Racing	53.615	+0.801	7
20	22	Courtney	Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing	53.622	+0.808	6
21	18	Winterbottom	Preston Hire Racing	53.670	+0.856	5
22	2	S. Pye	Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing	53.757	+0.943	6
23	21	M. Jones	CoolDrive Racing	53.783	+0.969	6
24	19	J. Le Brocq	TEKNO Woodstock Racing	53.855	+1.041	7
25	77	Blanchard	Drillpro Racing	53.987	+1.173	7