Holden veteran Craig Lowndes secured pole position for Saturday’s V8 Supercars race on the Gold Coast as his championship rivals faltered.
The Red Bull Racing pilot will start from pole in the 300km street race at Surfers Paradise after pipping Holden Racing Team duo James Courtney and Garth Tander in the top 10 shootout.
Lowndes clocked a fastest lap of one minute, 10.9569 seconds and will line up alongside Courtney on the front row of the grid.
Tander, who qualified fastest for the shootout, will start from third alongside surprise packet Tony D’Alberto.
It’s a huge plus for Lowndes, who goes into the race 114 points behind teammate Jamie Whincup in this year’s championship standings.
Whincup will start back in 25th position after being penalised for causing a red flag during qualifying.
He’ll be joined at the back of the grid by Ford rival Will Davison, who will start from 21st after being caught up in an incident with Lowndes early in the qualifying run.
Bathurst 1000 winner Mark Winterbottom also struggled after an early collision with a kerb during qualifying and will start from 14th.
Winterbottom admitted he was disappointed not to take advantage of Whincup’s misfortune.
“It was a great job by the guys to get out there and salvage something,” Winterbottom told AAP.
“When your rivals have a bad day you have to maximise it and we didn’t really do that.”
Saturday’s race starts at 2.30pm AEST (1530AEDT).