Davison tops thrilling qualifying, Brown misses Shootout

Will Davison has topped a thrilling Boost Mobile Qualifying session at the NTI Townsville 500, with championship leader Will Brown failing to secure a Shootout berth.

Davison led an all-Ford top five after 15 minutes of qualifying around Reid Park, with Davison, Cam Waters, Thomas Randle, Chaz Mostert and Anton De Pasquale covered by a staggering 0.0426s.

Jack Le Brocq was sixth ahead of Brad Jones Racing duo Andre Heimgartner and Bryce Fullwood, with Matt Payne and Broc Feeney sneaking into the Shootout.

It was a different story for Brown, who will start 13th for Saturday’s 88-lap, 250km Race 13.

Heading to Townsville, Brown qualified no worse than ninth for the first 12 races of the season, and has claimed 11 podiums in 12 starts.

The Triple Eight driver leader is 108 points ahead of teammate Feeney, who beat reigning champion Brodie Kostecki to the final Shootout berth by just 0.0131s.

Darwin pole-sitter James Golding was 12th ahead of Brown and Nick Percat, with BJR rookie Jaxon Evans 15th.

It was a smart turnaround for 2013 Townsville winner Davison, who was only 18th and 14th in Friday's two practice sessions.

"It's awesome, it's not a Shootout, it's not a pole position, but we didn't have a great day yesterday," said Davison, who is battling a flu.

"It always rewarding when you work late at night and try and make sense of it, because we had a lot of people confused yesterday.

"That last run we made a little tweak and the car just came alive, I actually made a little blue down at the last corner, I thought I'd thrown it all away.

"Credit to the team, both of us are in the 10, just really proud of everyone in the whole team."

Le Brocq, Waters, De Pasquale, Payne, Feeney and Kostecki were covered by just 0.0966s as cars returned to the lane after the first runs, with Randle, Brown, Mostert and Heimgartner rounding out the top 10.

Percat jumped to all-important 10th position with a 1:13.7304s, before Randle climed to the top with a 1:13.5027s. Hemigartner jumped to third with a 1:13.5299s, dropping Brown to 10th.

Mostert vaulted from 11th to first with a 1:13.4525, before Waters went marginally quicker with a 1:13.4126s. Randle split the former teammates, before Davison went fastest of all with a Davison 1:13.4114s.

All the while, Brown bailed out of his final run and eventually wound up in 13th, marking his worst qualifying result of the season.

Supercars action will resume with the Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout at 12:05pm, which will set the grid for Race 13, which will start at 2:40pm.