South African Sheldon van der Linde has won the Allan Simonsen Pole Position Trophy after setting the fastest time during the Top 10 Shootout at the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour.
A 2m 01.981s did the job for van der Linde and Team WRT as it was the first Repco Bathurst 12 Hour pole position for BMW since Chaz Mostert in 2018 driving the M6 GT3.
The top 10 runners were split in half to contest two 15 minute segments as Australian Matt Campbell set the pace in the opener on a 2m 02.425s in the Manthey EMA Porsche Type-992 GT3R, but ended up fourth in the end.
Triple Eight Race Engineering driver and provisional polesitter Broc Feeney was second for Mercedes-AMG falling just 0.256s short. The pole winner from last year, Maro Engel was third for Mercedes-AMG GruppeM Racing as Campbell is well positioned in sharing the second row after struggling during qualifying.
Dual race winning team SunEnergy1 is fifth on the grid courtesy of Luca Stolz’s effort, with Ricardo Feller leading the Audi charge from sixth for KFC/Jamec Racing ahead of teammate Kelvin van der Linde in the Wash It R8 LMS GT3 Evo 2 set to be shared by reigning Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS winner Liam Talbot.
The second Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 will start from eighth after Maxime Martin completed the session. Manthey EMA’s Pro-Am entry featuring dual Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS series winner Yasser Shahin will be ninth on the grid after Alessio Picariello set a 2m 03.079s.
Rounding out the top 10 was Jordan Love in the Pro-Am Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT3.
It’s an early start for the drivers and teams for tomorrow’s Repco Bathurst 12 Hour as the race starts at 5:45am AEDT.