Starting order decided

Conditions were hot and muggy, with storm clouds threatening but never delivering their promised downpour at Mount Panorama for today’s qualifying. All four Audis racing this yearwere quick and in the mix throughout the day, up against a veritable army of entries from AMG Benz, two BMWs and a couple of Porsches thrown in for good measure.

But where Kelvin van der Linde was fastest in practice on Friday, posting a blistering 2:02.7346s around the famous Bathurst track, it was his brother Sheldon, driving for BMW, who would ultimately take the fastest lap for qualifying and secure pole position for the start of tomorrow’s race.

It came as no surprise that the two Melbourne Performance Centre Pro cars were right in the mix for the Pirelli Shootout to decide tomorrow’s starting grid after strong performances throughout the earlier practice sessions and during the qualifying earlier in the day.

Each of the drivers have shown good pace during their respective sessions, with current Australian GT champion, Liam Talbot fastest in the first Bronze-only session of the weekend.

The format for the shootout now sees two groups of five cars take to the track for 15 minutes each to determine fastest times, with the ‘slower’ of the top 10 going out first, followed by the fastest five from earlier qualifying.

Both MPC Audis were in the first group where Kelvin van der Linde continued his earlier form in the #22 Audi to post a 2:02.7602s and set the running. Teammate Ricardo Feller wasn’t to be outdone though, posting a 2:02.6604s to become the fastest Audi around the track so far this meeting.

Those times were ultimately good enough to secure sixth position on the grid for the Swiss driver in the KFC Team MPC Audi, with South African van der Linde in the #22 Wash It Team MPC car right behind him on seventh.

The familiar #9 Hallmarc car of Marc Cini, Lee Holdsworth and Dean Fiore was the next of the Audis, just outside of the top 10 in 12th position for the race, while the #44 Valmont Racing Audi will start just a little further back in the file in 15th position.

Just one of this year’s posted entries became a casualty today to leave a starting grid for tomorrow of 29 cars to line up for the race at 5:45am. Despite the rude starting hour, all looks set for a good race and the Audis look solid and sorted heading into the 12 hours during which, history has shown, anything can happen.