Scott McLaughlin has smashed his own lap record around the Mount Panorama circuit in the Top 10 Shootout in Bathurst today.
Rolling out of pitlane as the final car in the famous Top 10 Shootout, McLaughlin had Chaz Mostert as his target as he ran around the 6.2km circuit.
Ultimately McLaughlin was just over four-tenths of a second clear of the field, with a lap-record 2m03.3783s lap time.
“Wow,” commented McLaughlin. “That’s just incredible. I was hanging on for dear life there. That in-lap was pretty impressive, I’ve never seen so many people cheering us on.
“I’m really proud of the team at Shell V-Power Racing, far out this car is a rocket ship and it just hooked up in those conditions. I’m just pumped. Coming down the hill, I was pretty fast and thought ‘jeez, I’ve just got to hold onto the thing’. Then just threw it into the Chase and the last corner and it held on, it stuck well. We’ve got one big one to get tomorrow, that’s what I’m focused on a lot more, but we’ve qualified now and we’re starting from the best possible position.”
It was his 15th Pole Position of the 2019 season, and his second at Bathurst after his then record-breaking effort back in 2017.
Earlier in the day Practice 6 and 7 saw the Car 12 crew of Fabian Coulthard and Tony D’Alberto working on their race set-up, with them due to start 16th for tomorrow’s 1000km, 161-lap race.
McLaughlin’s co-driver Alex Prémat spent the full 30-minute Practice 6 behind the wheel of Car 17, putting in strong laps as he prepares to partner the Championship leader tomorrow.
The race starts at 11:30am local time tomorrow morning, with many pundits predicting a record sub-six-hour race time.
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