De Pasquale, Van Gisbergen shine in wet
Anton De Pasquale and Shane Van Gisbergen have split pole positions for races 24 and 25 at Sydney Motorsport Park, navigating heavy rain en route to the front of the Supercars grid.
De Pasquale bounced back to secure his fourth pole position in two weeks, after a disastrous technical issue in Saturday's qualifying relegated him to the back of the grid for the evening race.
Having secured all three poles in last weekend's event, the Shell V-Power driver nabbed his eighth pole of 2021 to lead all drivers in what he described as difficult conditions.
"It was obviously pretty tricky, never done a lap here in the wet and we haven't done many laps in the wet in general for a few years. So to sort of go out there sideways hanging on, the lap time sort of comes," he told Fox Sports.
But it was Van Gisbergen who capitalised in the second 10-minute qualifying stint as the weather briefly let up for this year's championship leader, who powered home to pip Chaz Mostert for pole.
The Red Bull Ampol Driver had a scare in the first session of qualifying, briefly aquaplaning into turn five before holding steady, but Cameron Waters behind spun out and found the gravel.
With a clinical dry-surface racing pedigree, Van Gisbergen pipped Mostert by fifteen hundredths of a second to land his sixth pole of the year.
"I had a huge moment at one. I think Waters followed me off there but it was very tough, but we managed to get some grip out of it which was cool," he said.
"First session was a bit tricky. Anton was really quick so I made a couple little tweaks. But yeah, see what happens in the races."
Race 24 at Sydney Motorsport Park begins at 4.35pm (AEDT) with the second of Sunday's double header under lights at 7.30pm (AEDT).
SUPERCARS RACE 24 QUALIFYING RESULTS
1. Anton De Pasquale (Shell V-Power Racing) 1:41.5949
2. Shane Van Gisbergen (Red Bull Ampol Racing) + 0.523
3. Chaz Mostert (Mobil 1(tm) Appliances Online Racing) + 0.729
4. Bryce Fullwood (Mobil 1(tm) Middy's Racing) + 0.753
5. Will Davison (Shell V-Power Racing) + 1.435
SUPERCARS RACE 25 QUALIFYING RESULTS
1. Shane Van Gisbergen (Red Bull Ampol Racing) 1:42.0645
2. Chaz Mostert (Mobil 1(tm) Appliances Online Racing) +0.158
3. Anton De Pasquale (Shell V-Power Racing) +0.375
4. Nick Percat (Brad Jones Racing) +0.621
5. Andre Heimgartner (NED Racing) +0.685
