Ford star Scott McLaughlin has responded from botching a record fifth-straight Supercars victory by taking his 40th career pole position.

The championship leader’s crucial error in a safety-car restart on Saturday allowed Nissan’s Rick Kelly to snatch a famous win at the Winton Supersprint.

But McLaughlin took his seventh pole of the season in Sunday morning’s qualifying session as Shell V-Power teammate Fabian Coulthard joined him on the front row.

Kelly backed up his drought-breaking win and will start at third on the grid for race two, with Michael Caruso’s efforts ensuring an all-Nissan second row.

McLaughlin smashed his time from day one qualifying by setting a fastest lap of 1min 19.02sec.

The result put him outright fifth on the Supercars’ all-time pole position list -only behind Jamie Whincup, Peter Brock, Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife.

“It’s great for Shell V-Power Racing, another front-row lockout and hopefully I don’t balls it up like I did yesterday,” the 24-year-old said.

“I thought it was going to be a (1:18), I was chasing more but the car was fantastic then.”

Tickford Racing’s Chaz Mostert qualified fifth-fastest, while Scott Pye will start as the highest-placed Holden driver in sixth.

Mark Winterbottom’s 37th birthday started in frustrating fashion, relegated to 18th after an incident with Red Bull Holden’s Shane van Gisbergen, who was seventh fastest ahead of teammate Whincup.

Veteran Lowndes’s qualifying woes continued with a 24th placing, while fellow championship contender David Reynolds will start at the back of the grid after a disastrous session.

The 67-lap race will get underway at 1.45pm.