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Sargent stunner delivers Bathurst pole to brand-new BMW
A STUNNING lap from young-gun Thomas Sargent has delivered a fairy-tale Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour pole position to a brand-new BMW built by a family team from Canberra.
A stunning 2m24.23s lap from the 20-year-old from New South Wales delivered pole to the Tegra Australia team and a BMW M2 Competition that only turned its first laps at speed last week – following a lengthy build program by the CHE Engineering outfit headed by Carrera Cup champion Cameron Hill and his dad, Colin.
RESULTS: Bathurst 6 Hour Qualifying
Sargent’s lap was the second fastest in 6-Hour qualifying history and gave them pole for Sunday’s Showroom Showdown by a full second.
Hill let his younger teammate do a majority of the driving on Saturday, Sargent topping practice three earlier in the day as a signal of the cars performance.
Driving for Hill’s team, Sargent won Class D of the Bathurst 6 Hour last year driving a Toyota 86 GTS.
David Russell’s 2m25.3327s was good for second position aboard the Karl Begg / Nash Morris BMW M4, while a late charge from Tim Slade saw him end up third fastest in the M3 he will share with Bradley Carr.
Anton de Pasquale’s first qualifying effort in 6-Hour competition saw him fourth, while Dalton Ellery’s superb 2m26.28s best was good for fifth position and in the midst of key Supercars talent.
Will Davison was handed the job of qualifying the #23 BMW M3 he’ll share with former winners Beric Lynton and Tim Leahey and did the job needed – qualifying sixth and keeping the squad’s track record of qualifying in the top six for every 6-Hour staged in tact.
Nick Percat battled traffic throughout his 20-minute session aboard the #1 car and ended up seventh, while Jayden Ojeda was eighth.
BMWs were one through nine, Drew Russell qualifying his car ninth with a 2m27.87s best.
The battle for pole position in the A1 and A2 categories was intense throughout the session with the top spot changing hands several times throughout the session.
A flyer from Dylan O’Keeffe saw him grab 10th outright and first in A1 aboard the RAM / GWR Mercedes AMG A45, while teammate Garth Walden was second in A1, 12th outright and only 0.4s behind his TCR-driving teammates.
Will Brown was just one spot further back in 13th, third in A1 and 0.6s slower than Walden in a tight A1 fight.
Aaron Cameron jumped out of his race-winning TCR Australia car to grab the class A2 pole position in his Ford Mustang GT, one he will share with the McLeod brothers Nicholas and Cameron.
His 2m28.6s best was good for 11th outright in the field and gave him a just over one-second margin over the second car in class, the Tony Quinn / Grant Denyer Local Legends Mustang.
Mark Mallard and Matt Forbes-Wilson grabbed pole in Class B – and 28th outright – despite a late session spin after contact with Drew Russell’s BMW.
Class C went the way of the Grand Prix Mazda 3 MPS driven by Jake Camilleri and Scott Nicholas, who qualified 38th outright.
They edged out the Racer Industries Astra VXR driven by Benjamin McLeod for class pole, with James Hay in the VW Scirocco third in class.
Class D Pole went to the Orange-based MWM Racing Mini Cooper driven by James Keene: the local edging out Jay Robotham aboard the BPro Racing Toyota 86 for the class pole. Third was Ben Crossland in the DBA Australia Honda Civic Type R.
Finally, Andrew McMaster delivered pole to his LAN Installations Mazda team in Class E, with a comfortable three-second margin over the similar Mazda driven in qualifying by Phil Alexander.
Amar Sharma topped the three-car Champ Motorsport Suzuki team in the fight for third in class by just 0.2 seconds.
The 2022 Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour starts at 11:15am on Sunday morning and will be shown live on Stan Sport in Australia, and motorsport.tv around the world.