Mostert Narrowly Beats Van der Linde to Bathurst 12H Pole

Coinspot Audi driver Chaz Mostert produced a magical final sector to narrowly beat Kelvin van der Linde and secure pole position for the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour.

After running off the pace in the first two sectors of his final flying lap, Mostert produced an overall best final sector of the Mount Panorama Circuit to leapfrog the Audi factory driver by just 0.086 seconds.

Mostert will share the No. 65 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II with Liam Talbot and Fraser Ross in Sunday’s Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli opener.

The reigning Bathurst 1000 winner previously claimed the 2018 pole driving a Team Schnitzer BMW M6 GT3.

His best effort of the deciding 15-minute qualifying session on Saturday afternoon was a 2:02.493, while van der Linde produced a 2:02.579 aboard the No. 74 Audi that is also being run by the Melbourne Performance Centre team.

Mostert and van der Linde traded blows in qualifying which, in a late rule change, had a new look after Supercars did away with the traditional one-by-one Top 10 Shootout procedure because drivers were struggling to get their Pirelli tires up to temperature quickly.

Van der Linde struck first on his second lap with a 2:03.663, but Mostert went four-tenths quicker on his opening flyer.

An improvement into the 2m 2s range from van der Linde was met by another purple lap from Mostert, but the Audis switched places later in the session when van der Linde reeled off a 2:02.579 to duck under Mostert’s benchmark.

That left Mostert with the task of playing catch-up, but he delivered just enough at the last moment to secure the top spot in an Audi front-row lockout.

Jules Gounon qualified third with a time of 2:03.219 in the SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, the Frenchman moving ahead of No. 777 Audi Sport Team Valvoline driver Ricardo Feller in the closing stages.

Qualifying lap record holder Shane van Gisbergen ended up fifth after leading the first 15-minute session for cars that ranked sixth through tenth in preliminary qualifying that took place earlier in the afternoon.

Van Gisbergen’s No. 888 Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG will share the third row of the grid with the No. 9 Hallmarc Audi driven by Lee Holdsworth.

Ben Barker was seventh in the Grove Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, ahead of Am pole-sitter Duvashen Padayachee in a pre-Evo Mercedes-AMG entered by Valmont Racing.

The top 10 was completed by Tony d’Alberto aboard Wall Racing’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo and Brett Hobson driving the Sheargold Motorsport Mercedes-AMG.

RESULTS: Top 10 Qualifying