Motorsport: Davison delights Ford fans with pole

Will Davison. Photograph / Greg Bowker

Ford Performance Racing's Will Davison will start on pole for the first of the endurance races in the 2013 V8 Supercars championship.

Davison sits second in the series behind defending champion Jamie Whincup and is keen to get one up on the Red Bull Racing Australia driver in the first of three back-to-back long distance races.

He'll have his work cut out as Whincup will sit beside him on the front row of the grid with team-mate Craig Lowndes tucked in behind, and Mark Winterbottom rounding out the first two rows.

"Clearly we had a great car [yesterday] but [today] is pay day," said Davison. "It shows we have a quick car but I was a bit nervous, as we have been struggling to get a balance this weekend.

"But it turned out to be a good, fast consistent race. I pushed hard to have Steve [Owen] as my co-driver, as I didn't want to leave a single stone unturned in preparation for the race."

Whincup pushed as hard as he could but couldn't match his co-driver's win in the first of the qualifying races.

"I'm struggling to work out what happened. One of us is driving like Ayrton Senna, or one of us has our skirt on," said Whincup.

"I'm not sure what's going on but PD [Paul Dumbrell] did the business and I was pretty useless."

Today's start order was determined by two races on Saturday - one 20-lapper for the co-drivers and another for the main game drivers, which determined the race grid.

Whincup qualified his co-driver Dumbrell on pole for race one, with Chaz Mostert posting the second fastest time with minutes to go to allow Dale Wood to start from the front row.

Best of the Kiwi drivers was Scott McLaughlin in third allowing Jack Perkins to start alongside Greg Murphy who's partnering Garth Tander.

Dumbrell held firm when the lights went out to lead Owen and Wood through the opening lap. He then proceeded to pull away to comfortably win from the chasing pair.

Heavy action began on the second corner of the very first lap when Paul Morris charged into Kiwi Matthew Halliday spinning him around. A later incident between Ashley Walsh and fellow Kiwi John McIntyre putting paid to any reasonable result. The safety car appeared after Shane van Gisbergen's co-driver Jeroen Bleekemolen stopped on the circuit with a suspected tail shaft problem

In the second race of the day Davison held his nerve off the line to lead from Whincup and Lowndes. Garth Tander, on the other hand, was left standing having fluffed the start and was monstered by the rest of the field.

The chaos continued at turn two with the cars towards the rear of the field tangling before sorting themselves out. Meanwhile, up front Davison, Whincup and Lowndes continued on their merry way.

At the chequered flag Davison crossed the line ahead of Whincup and Lowndes with the best of the Kiwis McLaughlin in ninth. The race starts today at 3.35pm.