ARON SHIELDS has edged teammate Nash Morris by under one-tenth of a second to score pole position for Round 3 of the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Australia Series today at Sydney Motorsport Park.
In a thrilling qualifying session that went down to the wire, Sheilds’ 1m29.9891s flyer edged Porsche debutant Morris by 0.0171s to give TekworkX Motorsport a 1-2 result in qualifying and the driver his first career pole.
Shields is the third different polesitter from three rounds this year, while TekworkX become the third different team to qualify on pole.
The tight session saw times consistently drop as teams switched from their first set of Michelin slicks to their second late in the session.
Late improvement from Marcos Flack saw him storm to third in his Sonic entry, the second-generation Porsche racer only 0.0277s from pole and even less from a spot on the front row.
Zac Stichbury was fourth, while the third row of the grid will be comprised of Ronan Murphy in fifth and championship leader Marco Giltrap in sixth.
Even then, the latter was just 0.35s from pole position.
Lachlan Bloxsom was next, while Adrian Flack starred on his Pro-Am class return to Sprint Challenge – not only taking pole in class but qualifying well inside the top-10 in the process.
Harrison Goodman and Tom Taplin completed the top-10. The top 15 cars were covered by under one second in one of the most stacked Sprint Challenge fields in history.
Second in Pro-Am was championship leader Sam Shahin, the Pro-Am rivals in Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup continuing their rivalry into the Sprint Challenge series.
Shahin was 12th outright, while Brett Boulton was third in class and 16th outright, not far behind.
Matt Slavin was fourth in class, with Richard Cowen a strong fifth in the Pro-Am fight.
Brad Carr continued his strong recent form – he won the Symmons Plains round last time out – to grab pole in Class B, with defending champion Lachlan Harburg and Brayden Taylor next in class.
After a busy Friday that saw two practice sessions and a qualifying session in a single day, the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge field now waits until later on Saturday for the first time this weekend, with the opening race of the weekend set for a 6:25pm start tomorrow night.
That race will be broadcast live on Fox Sports 506 and Kayo Sports.