Lowndes secures Symmons pole hat-trick

Craig Lowndes has scored his third Armor All Pole Award of the weekend at Symmons Plains ahead of this afternoon’s 200km finale.

The 40-year-old now has 40 career poles and is hunting a 100th race win in the championship.

Lowndes sat atop the order with a 52.03s best ahead of the crucial final tyre run of the 20 minute session.

The Red Bull driver then improved the benchmark further to 57.80s to end up 0.04s clear of David Reynolds’ Prodrive Ford.

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“I actually didn’t think I got the best out of the car today in qualifying, but it was good enough to be up there,” smiled Lowndes.

“The guys are all delighted and now we can concentrate on the 84 laps ahead.”

Lowndes’ team-mate Jamie Whincup will start third ahead of Will Davison, Shane van Gisbergen and Chaz Mostert.

Andre Heimgartner backed up his impressive Saturday qualifying efforts with seventh ahead of Garth Tander, Mark Winterbottom and Jason Bright.

Scott McLaughlin and James Courtney both found themselves outside the top 10 in 11th and 12th respectively.

An incredibly tight session saw the top 24 cars separated by just 0.6s around the short 2.4km layout.

Race 6 of the championship is scheduled to get underway at 1400 local time.

While qualifying was held solely on hard tyres, each car will be allocated a set of softs to use during the race.

QUALIFYING : Race 6 – Symmons Plains

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Time	Gap
1	Craig Lowndes	Red Bull Racing Australia	Holden Commodore VF	0:51.7978*
2	David Reynolds	The Bottle-O Racing Team	Ford Falcon FG/X	0:51.8463	0:00.0485
3	Jamie Whincup	Red Bull Racing Australia	Holden Commodore VF	0:51.8532	0:00.0554
4	Will Davison	Erebus Motorsport V8	Mercedes E63 AMG	0:51.9062	0:00.1084
5	Shane Van Gisbergen	Team Darrell Lea STIX	Holden Commodore VF	0:51.9125	0:00.1147
6	Chaz Mostert	Pepsi Max Crew	Ford Falcon FG/X	0:52.0099	0:00.2121
7	Andre Heimgartner	Super Black Racing	Ford Falcon FG/X	0:52.0172	0:00.2194
8	Garth Tander	Holden Racing Team	Holden Commodore VF	0:52.0219	0:00.2241
9	Mark Winterbottom	Pepsi Max Crew	Ford Falcon FG/X	0:52.0668	0:00.2690
10	Jason Bright	Team BOC	Holden Commodore VF	0:52.0972	0:00.2994
11	Scott McLaughlin	Wilson Security Racing GRM	Volvo S60	0:52.1461	0:00.3483
12	James Courtney	Holden Racing Team	Holden Commodore VF	0:52.1899	0:00.3921
13	Dale Wood	GB Galvanizing Racing	Holden Commodore VF	0:52.1906	0:00.3928
14	Fabian Coulthard	Freightliner Racing	Holden Commodore VF	0:52.1991	0:00.4013
15	Lee Holdsworth	Walkinshaw Racing	Holden Commodore VF	0:52.2249	0:00.4271
16	Tim Slade	Supercheap Auto Racing	Holden Commodore VF	0:52.2454	0:00.4476
17	Nick Percat	Repair Management Aust Racing	Holden Commodore VF	0:52.2502	0:00.4524
18	Ashley Walsh	Erebus Motorsport V8	Mercedes E63 AMG	0:52.2516	0:00.4538
19	Rick Kelly	Nissan Motorsport	Nissan Altima	0:52.2945	0:00.4967
20	Todd Kelly	Nissan Motorsport	Nissan Altima	0:52.3503	0:00.5525
21	Scott Pye	DJR Team Penske	Ford Falcon FG/X	0:52.3642	0:00.5664
22	James Moffat	Nissan Mororsport	Nissan Altima	0:52.3730	0:00.5752
23	David Wall	Wilson Security Racing GRM	Volvo S60	0:52.3898	0:00.5920
24	Michael Caruso	Nissan Motorsport	Nissan Altima	0:52.3929	0:00.5951
25	Tim Blanchard	Team Cooldrive	Holden Commodore VF	0:52.9913	0:01.1935