Toll Holden Racing Team driver Garth Tander at the ITM400 Hamilton.
More news
By Briar Gunther 10:51 AM Sun 18 April, 2010
Source: BigPond Sport
Toll Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander scooped pole position by a whisker over TeamVodafone’s Jamie Whincup in the 20 minute all-in qualifying session at the ITM400 Hamilton today (Sunday).
Tander’s quickest lap time was a mere six one-hundredths of a second quicker than Whincup, who also had the misfortune of getting caught up in lapped traffic on his last lap.
The Holden Racing Team (HRT) and TeamVodafone drivers have set a pattern in the last two Championship events, with Whincup getting pole on Saturday and Tander getting second place and then swapping positions on the Sunday.
“It is, unfortunately,” Tander laughed about the pattern.
“I’d rather be on pole both days and I’m sure he would too but yeah, I made a couple of mistakes in yesterday’s Shootout lap that probably cost us, similar to what happened at Adelaide.”
The session was red-flagged at the six minute mark after Bundaberg Red Racing’s Andrew Thompson speared into the outside wall coming out of turn one. Officials took the opportunity during the red-flag period to clean up oil which a car had left on the track.
“We didn’t get much of a run at the start of that session and there was some oil down so I was a bit worried that we weren’t going to get a time in at the end but we got one in right when we needed to and it was good enough to get pole so I was really happy with that,” Tander said.
“There was a lot of oil in the last sector so that went down just before the red flag and I didn’t know how quickly that was going to clean up but it actually cleaned up pretty well; it (his #2 Commodore) was probably just a bit taily at the end of the lap.
“I was coming on to the straight where there was a bit of oil still there, but I’m happy with our result.
“It’s good to be on the inside of the run to the first corner and if we get a good start, hopefully we’ll get the leap.”
Whincup posted the fastest two first sectors while on a flyer at the very end of the session but Triple F Racing’s Dean Fiore, who also drives a Triple Eight car, held him up.
Taking a philosophical approach to his predicament, Whincup said the three parts to a good lap was having a fast car, driving it well and getting the right track position.
“And I failed to do the third one right,” he said. “Hey, it’s all part of the job.”
Tander was glad to see him teammate Will Davison qualify in eighth after engine dramas put a stop to his day yesterday.
“He was obviously disappointed after yesterday and we all knew he’d bounce back and he did and if we get up there and get both HRT cars on the podium it would be fantastic,” GT said.
Race eight of the 2010 V8 Supercar Championship is scheduled to start at 3.05pm New Zealand time.
