Reigning V8 Supercar champion Garth Tander expects his first ever Bathurst pole position will count for very little Sunday.
The Holden hotshot held his fancied Ford rivals at bay with a lap of 2mins:07.2963secs around the iconic Mount Panorama circuit in Saturday’s top ten shootout. But he said by lap 10 of 161 in the gruelling 1000km showpiece the starting grid would be all but forgotten.
Tander’s five-time Bathurst winning teammate Mark Skaife agreed, saying: “There’s a very long way to go yet.”
“We’re obviously very happy to start on pole but ten laps into the race I’m not too sure whether anyone will care where we started,” said Tander, who leads the V8 Supercar championship.
Joining them on the front row of the grid will be Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards, Winterbottom’s one-lap dash just over one-tenth of a second slower.
“(Qualifying) really means absolutely nothing,” said Richards, the two-time winner agreeing with Tander’s sentiments.
“In the past I’ve been fortunate enough to win from 15th so that goes to show how much it means in terms of the race result.”
The second row will be made up of Ford’s James Courtney and David Besnard and the Holden of Paul Dumbrell and Rick Kelly.
– AAP
