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Shane van Gisbergen puts Tekno McLaren on Bathurst 12 Hour pole

McLarens and Audis dominated qualifying for Sunday's Bathurst 12 Hour, with Shane van Gisbergen setting the fastest-ever lap on the famed Mountain circuit

After lighting up the track in the initial full-field qualifying session, van Gisbergen found another 0.3 seconds in the second session for the top 20 cars to take pole with a 2m01.286s lap.

The V8 Supercars frontrunner will share the 650S with fellow McLaren team member Alvaro Parente and Tekno Autosport's team owner, Jonathon Webb.

"It was amazing, I have never been close to that fast around here before," grinned the New Zealander after taking the trophy named in honour of former Bathurst regular and GT racer Allan Simonsen.

He led four McLarens in the top eight positions, and two Audis in the top four positions.

Fresh from winning the GTD category in the Daytona 24 Hours, Rene Rast, a last minute substitute for Craig Lowndes, was second fastest.

"We used the tyres perfectly but Shane did an awesome lap. I could not beat him today," said Rast.

On his second trip to Australia Rast will share with the James Pem R8 LMS with V8 ace Garth Tander and amateur Steve McLaughlin.

Objective Racing's McLaren took third, with Warren Luff setting the time after co-driver Matt Campbell led final practice.

Fourth fastest was Christopher Mies in the second James Pem Audi, which he will share with Christopher and Marco Mapelli.

That was the end of the good news for Audi, with a number of the new R8s struggling for qualifying speed.

Last year's polesitter Laurens Vanthoor was off the road at more than 140mph at one point and will start ninth for Phoenix Racing.

The second Tekno McLaren of Will Davison/Rob Bell/Andrew Watson was fifth ahead of fellow McLaren crew Craig Baird/Tony Quinn/Klark Quinn McLaren, who sat out the faster, final session.

In doing so, the team dropped three grid spots to sixth, but the speed of the car was shown as Klark Quinn, an amateur driver, set its qualifying time.

The M-Sport run Bentleys had a consistent rather than blazing qualifying session and will line up seventh and eighth, Steven Kane/Guy Smith/Matt Bell ahead of Maxime Soulet/Andy Soucek/David Russell.

The defending champions had a tough time. Two-time Bathurst 1000 winner Rick Kelly did qualifying duties in the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 but the car will line up only 13th fastest.

Last year's winners Katsumasa Chiyo and Florian Strauss will share the sole Nissan in the race.

V8 Supercar star Scott McLaughlin led the times in Class B in the Porsche Carrera Cup racer he will share with 2015 Le Mans winner Earl Bamber and Stephen Grove.

The Invitation Class is led by Jamie Augustine in the Daytona Coupe, ahead of the squadron of locally-built MARC V8 racers, led by the Jake Camilleri/Morgan Haber/Aaron Seton Ford Focus.

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