James Golding has created a piece of history at Albert Park today, claiming the first-ever pole position in ‘championship conditions’ for the VHT Australian S5000 Championship.
Kiwi rookie Jordan Michels will start 12th. “I’m loving every lap as Albert Park is mind blowing,” commented Michels. “We kept our noses clean and qualified 12th. We will make a few changes tonight and look to move forward tomorrow.”
Driving his Valvoline GRM S5000, Golding pipped Thomas Randle by 0.1s after a tight, tough session that included a red flag period for Rubens Barrichello, who beached his Pilatus-backed car at Turn 3.
Golding was the fastest in the morning’s practice session, and continued that strong form into qualifying, outdoing Randle, despite the latter’s best efforts.
Randle held the top place in the opening stages before the Barrichello red flag, but will start outside of the front row, just ahead of an impressive Ricky Capo who ended the session third.
Reigning Bathurst 1000 champion Alexandre Premat was fourth ahead of his GRM stablemate Luis Leeds.
Sixth went to Team BRM’s Jack Aitken, who was on for a faster time, only to succumb to traffic on his final flyer.
James Davison, Zane Goddard, Giancarlo Fisichella and Tim Macrow rounded out the top 10, while Barrichello will start from 11th.
Race 1 will be held at tomorrow morning at 10:50am.
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