THE KINGS of Porsche qualifying have continued their 2024 reign, as the grid was set for Round 5 of Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Australia in a chaotic, unpredictable session at Sandown today.
Through one of the closest qualifying sessions of the year, Harri Jones (Equity One Pro) and Adrian Flack (SP Tools Pro-Am) scored the respective TAG Heuer Pole Position awards.
It was the fourth pole for each driver this season, meaning neither can be beaten for the season-long TAG Heuer Pole Award competition this year – assuring each a brand-new TAG Heuer timepiece at the end of season Carrera Cup gala in Adelaide.
Jones’ fourth pole of the year and seventh career effort saw him top the charts with a 1m08.7300s session in what he described as a ‘scrappy’ 30-minute session.
Jones’ becomes just the seventh driver in history to score three or more consecutive pole positions in a Carrera Cup season, while the Queenslander also now sits equal sixth on the all-time pole sitters list in Carrera Cup.
The Porsche Centre Melbourne Motorsport driver ended up just 0.1 seconds faster than Dylan O’Keeffe, who struggled early in qualifying before rebounding strongly to jump to second late in the piece aboard his GWR Australia entry.
McElrea’s duo of Jackson Walls (third) and Bayley Hall (fourth) were next, their efforts bumping the season’s only other pole winner, David Russell, to fifth by sessions’ end.
Fabian Coulthard equalled his best session of the year with sixth while a return to form saw Nash Morris a sharp seventh in his STM entry.
On debut, Zak Best qualified his EMA Motorsport car eighth while Marcos Flack and Dale Wood completed the top-10.
A red flag with 10 minutes remaining set up an intense run to the flag in today’s session with drivers’ having just six minutes to set a lap when the session removed.
Though several pushed hard to try and unseat Jones, at one point his advantage was three-tenths of a second before O’Keeffe narrowed the margin late.
The story was similar in SP Tools Pro-Am as Adrian Flack scored his fourth pole of the season – and fourth straight this year.
After struggling in practice, Flack’s 1m09.6993s flyer was within 0.96s of Jones’ outright pole position time and places his AGAS National car in 17th outright.
Sam Shahin qualified second on his return to the championship following a strong debut season in Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup, while last year’s Sandown winner Dean Cook ended his day in third – just 0.01s behind Shahin.
Rodney Jane was less than a tenth back in fourth with fellow home-town hero Matt Belford fifth. Matt Slavin, Stephen Grove and Marc Cini rounded out the 8-strong Pro-Am field.
Tomorrow will see a pair of races on the Penrite Sandown 500 program, with race 1 at 9:15am and the second – the Enduro Cup race – at 2:55pm.
