Jamie Whincup will start the potentially title deciding 28th race of the 2012 V8 Supercars Championship from pole position after a tight qualifying session at Winton.

The TeamVodafone Holden driver’s final qualifying lap of 1:22.80s proved enough to withstand late challenges from the Ford Performance Racing entries of Will Davison and Mark Winterbottom.

Davison’s final effort of 1:22.82s was good enough for the outside of the front-row, while Winterbottom rounded out the 20 minutes with 1:22.85s and 1:22.94s efforts to secure third.

The pole is Whincup’s seventh of the season, moving him to just one behind Davison’s class leading tally heading into the final round in Sydney.

Craig Lowndes endured a difficult second soft tyre run, which included being baulked by Shane van Gisbergen at Turn 12, and failed to improve from his earlier effort to end up fourth.

Davison had been the fastest of all on the first runs, at which point the top four were separated by just 0.08s.

Jonathon Webb scored his sixth top five starting spot of the year in his Tekno Holden ahead of Jason Bright, David Reynolds, Michael Caruso, Fabian Coulthard and Lee Holdsworth.

Shane van Gisbergen ended the session 11th after receiving a 60s pitlane hold penalty for his incident with Lowndes in the crucial final minutes.

David Wall was just one further position back in 12th – a career best starting position for the Wilson Security Racing Holden driver.

Fujitsu Racing’s Alexandre Premat also enjoyed one of his better sessions to end up 14th, two places higher than the star of yesterday’s race, James Moffat.

Whincup will head to the final round of the championship in Sydney next month with a lead in excess of the 300 points that will remain available if he finishes on the podium today, even if Winterbottom wins the race.

The 200km Race 28 is scheduled to get underway at 1535 local time.

Result: V8 Supercars Race 28 Qualifying, Winton Motor Raceway