De Pasquale beats van Gisbergen to Race 1 pole

Anton De Pasquale has beaten Shane van Gisbergen to the first ARMOR ALL Pole Position of 2022.

De Pasquale and van Gisbergen, who shared nine wins in Sydney last year, will share the front row for Saturday’s 77-lap race.

Last-man out De Pasquale secured his eighth pole at Sydney Motorsport Park; only Scott McLaughlin has more.

Tim Slade and Andre Heimgartner formed a surprise second row, Slade jumping five spots from his qualifying result.

Will Brown and Will Davison ended up fifth and sixth, with Brodie Kostecki, Chaz Mostert and David Reynolds filling positions seven through nine.

First-man out Broc Feeney will start 10th for the 300km race, which will start at 7:10pm AEDT.

"It’s always a good place to start the first race of the year," De Pasquale said.

"The guys have delivered me an awesome car, so we’ll see how we go."

Van Gisbergen may have been denied a 39th career pole, but he was pleased by his efforts.

"That was one of the best laps I’ve ever done here," van Gisbergen.

"It’s still that annoying two tenths [to De Pasquale], but I’m stoked about it."

Slade emerged as the one to beat with an impressive 1:29.947s.

Kostecki, Mostert, Brown and Heimgartner all failed to unseat Slade, who almost mirrored his front-row performance from last year’s season opener.

Van Gisbergen blew his rivals out of the water with a 1:29.550s, and with a Davison error at Turn 8, only De Pasquale could prevent the champion pole.

However, De Pasquale again proved his speed at SMSP and put nearly 0.2s on van Gisbergen.

It takes De Pasquale to 12 career poles; he won last year's ARMOR ALL Pole Champion Award with 11.

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