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Hansford charges to pole in Sydney twilight
RYAN HANSFORD has charged to his second Gulf Western Oil Touring Car Masters pole award at the circuit in the twilight at Sydney Motorsport Park.
In a 20-minute session broken into two halves thanks to a red flag, Hansford charged hard late in the evening to bank a 1m43.5781s best to secure his second straight pole at the venue aboard the Multispares Torana.
It was the fourth pole of his TCM Career.
RESULTS: Qualifying
On a still partially wet circuit, Hansford edged out John Bowe by 0.6 seconds to make it an all-Torana front row.
The session was held in the twilight on a circuit surface that, while mostly dry, was still wet in places were rivers of water continued to flow across the track.
That made conditions incredibly challenging and reflected in the lap times being some five seconds slower than the Sydney qualifying record.
Hansford was quickest early before the Red Flag flew to recover Tony Karanfilovski’s Mustang that was stuck on the circuit.
After he was recovered the Sydney driver was able to return to pit lane under his own power, the field restarting with just seven minutes remining in which to bank a lap.
Miedecke was first to strike, before quickly being beaten by Bowe and then Hansford – who remained on top for the session.
George Miedecke was third aboard his Whiteline Racing Camaro, while Steven Johnson was a late improver as he jumped to fourth in the Team Johnson XD Falcon.
Cameron Tilley was fifth in the Valliant Pacer, edging out nephew Jamie in his Mustang – the pair split by just 0.1 seconds.
Marcus Zukanovic was next, with Jim Pollicina, Cameron Mason and an impressive performance from John Adams seeing the Falcon GTHO driver complete the field.
TCM returns tomorrow for a pair of races, the first – the TCM Trophy race – set for 1:25pm.
The first full championship race of the season will then be shown live on Fox Sports and Kayo at 3:50pm AEDT.