Sydney 500 Supercars: Tander takes emotional final pole for HRT
Garth Tander took one last pole position for the Holden Racing Team, topping the Shootout in Sydney with a stunning lap early in the running.
Garth Tander, Holden Racing Team
Dirk Klynsmith
Tander ran third on the road having been just eighth quickest in the regular qualifying session, but banked an impressive 1m27.152s that put him more than a second clear of Todd Kelly and Nick Percat, who had already ran.
The remaining seven cars did their best to hunt down Tander’s time, provisional polesitter Shane van Gisbergen going closest when he fell just 0.01s short, but in the end nothing could stop Tander taking an emotional final pole in red on a day where he says farewell to the Clayton team, and the team farewells the Holden Racing Team brand.
“It was a good lap. I didn’t know how good it was going to be, because the cloud cover was coming and going,” he said.
“It was pretty close at the end, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had a pole so it’s a pretty special one.”
Newly-crowned champion van Gisbergen will start the race second, and while he missed out on pole he did with the $10,000 pole award thanks to Jamie Whincup making a mistake at the beginning of his Shootout lap and qualifying way down in 10th.
James Courtney added to HRT’s celebrations with the third quickest time, having actually been up on his teammate by four-hundredths at the first two splits.
David Reynolds dropped two spots in the Shootout, but will still start in an impressive fourth place in the Erebus Commodore, while Tim Slade jumped both Michael Caruso and Scott McLaughlin in the order to move up to fifth.
Volvo driver McLaughlin ended up in sixth ahead of Caruso, with Percat and Kelly eighth and ninth.
Whincup, meanwhile, ended up last of the Top 10 after running wide at Turn 1, and finishing more than four seconds off the pace after being told to “finish the lap, looking after the tyres a little bit”.
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