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Mawson flies to Sydney pole under lights
Joey Mawson has added 10 valuable championship points to his tally by virtue of taking a stunning pole position under lights in qualifying for the final round of the VHT S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship.
In a breathtaking 20-minute session, Mawson and James Golding went head-to-head as times tumbled in the cool Friday evening air at Sydney Motorsport Park, the Team BRM driver and current championship leader punching out a 1m23.6271s flyer to edge out Golding by 0.2 seconds.
RESULTS: Qualifying
The S5000 field was spectacular under lights and substantially quicker than earlier in practice; times a full 1.5 seconds improved on the earlier sessions.
Mawson was relentless at the top of the charts, repeatedly lapping within a few hundredths of his best time throughout the session.
An off on what could have been his fastest lap cost the GRM driver, however, from grabbing his second pole of the year.
Behind Golding and Mawson, Nathan Herne was third and Luis Leeds fourth to put the trio of Garry Rogers Motorsport drivers line-astern on the race one grid.
All three are mathematical chances at the championship however would need Mawson to strike dramas to have any hope of winning this weekend.
Title contenders Tim Macrow and Thomas Randle could manage no better than fifth and sixth, respectively; set to line up on the third row for the first of two heat races to run on Saturday.
They will have an advantage in the second, however, which features a top-8 inversion meaning that pair will start on the second row; with all main title contenders behind them.
Ricky Capo and Kaleb Ngatoa rounded out the top eight, with Cooper Webster and Brayden Willmington completing the top-10.
The pair of heat races will be staged at 10:45am and 12:35pm, respectively, on Saturday with live and free coverage on the 7mate, Sky Sports New Zealand and Motorsport.tv.