Jamie Whincup has won the second qualifying race to take pole for himself and co-driver Paul Dumbrell in the Wilson Security Sandown 500
Whincup led the second qualifying race from lights to flag to put his Red Bull Racing Commodore on pole for the 500km race tomorrow, but was shadowed for the whole race by Shane van Gisbergen. Van Gisbergen started from second following Jonathon Webb’s drive from seventh in the co-driver race, but was unable to make a move on the pole sitter despite having the faster car in the opening laps of the race.
Championship contender Mark Winterbottom rounded out the podium from the chasing Volvo of Scott McLaughlin. Unable to maintain pace with the leaders, FPR’s Winterbottom and McLaughlin had to settle into their own battle in third and fourth.
The fight for fifth meanwhile was again between the two Holden Racing Team cars, but it was Garth Tander who led home his teammate James Courtney.
Craig Lowndes made up two positions to take seventh ahead of the Bottle-O Falcon of David Reynolds who finished where he started in eighth.
The Supercheap Auto Racing Commodore of Tim Slade lost two places over the course of the race, but secured a ninth place start for tomorrow’s race.
The top-ten was rounded out by Kiwi Fabian Coulthard who was able to get past Todd Kelly’s Nissan Altima.
Erebus Motorsport were still unable to crack into the top ten with Lee Holdsworth being the first Mercedes home in twelfth.
Chaz Mostert was able to salvage some of the positions lost by co-driver Paul Morris as he clawed back four positions to finish 17th.
Russell Ingall was the only driver to get into any major strife with a spin heading into the first corner dropping him down the order. Ingall was only able to regain one spot and had to settle for second to last place.
All cars were able to finish what was largely a clean race. The fight for 15th threatened to boil over as Jason Bright toured the infield at turns 2 and 3 after being collected by Nick Percat in the HHA Racing Commodore. Rick Kelly was able to capitalise on the error and moved into 14th place while the rest of the group somehow made it through unscathed.
The drivers will take the grid for the 500km main event tomorrow in the order in which they finished this race with Jamie Whincup taking pole position ahead of Shane van Gisbergen and Mark Winterbottom.
