Campbell Quickest as Grid Set for Pirelli Top 10 Shootout

Photo: Porsche

Matt Campbell was quickest in Qualifying 2, which has locked in the cars that will advance to this afternoon’s Pirelli Top 10 Shotoout for the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour.

The defending race winner reeled off a 2:03.434 in his No. 911 Absolute Racing Porsche 911 RSR to edge out the No. 77 Team Craft-Bamboo Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maro Engel by 0.102 seconds.

Alvaro Parente made it three different manufacturers in the top-three, putting the No. 60 59Racing McLaren 720S GT3 third on the time sheets, followed by Raffaele Marciello in fourth and Laurens Vanthoor completing the top-five.

Kelvin van der Linde, Joao Paulo de Oliveira, Jake Dennis, Marco Mapelli and Shane van Gisbergen have also all advanced to the Top 10 Shootout with times all under the 2:04 barrier in their respective GT3 machines.

The No. 7 Team M-Sport Bentley Continental GT3 of Jules Gounon was the first to miss out on the shootout and will start 11th as a result, ahead of the No. 912 Absolute Porsche of Matteo Cairoli and David Reynolds’ GT3 Pro-Am class pole-sitting No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes.

Silver class pole honors, meanwhile, went to the No. 59 McLaren, qualified by Dominic Storey.

The session ended two minutes early after the No. 29 Trofeo Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of Dean Canto spun and ended up on top of the tire barriers at Skyline.

It was the second major accident to occur during the Q2 following Marvin Kirchhoefer’s massive accident that wrote-off the No. 62 R-Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

Two other cars were totaled in Q1, casting questions over the number of total starters for Sunday’s enduro.

The Top 10 Shootout gets underway at 5:05 p.m. local time.

RESULTS: Qualifying 2

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John