Tander set a new lap record on the opening stanza as he and almost half the field, 14 cars in total, started on the soft Dunlop Super Maxx Sprint tyre, ensuring plenty of early in the race.

Jim Beam Racing's James Courtney's run of luck went horribly wrong early when he lost a complete rear tyre, losing any advantage he had from starting on the soft combination. He had a stoush with Jack Daniel's Todd Kelly on the back straight with the two belting into each other at more than 250km/h. It was hard to tell if that caused the tyre malfunction.

Similarly Steven Richards was forced to put an extra time when his team under-filled his car at a fuel stop which meant an automatic penalty of having to come back in again.

Earlier Tander secured the Armor All pole position – his first of this year and third in a row at the short Symmons Plains circuit.

Craig Lowndes was eliminated from shootout for causing a 'red flag' when he missed the tight hairpin and to start from tenth on the grid. The same happened to Wilson Security's Fabian Coulthard who was then unable to go any better than 15th.

A similar penalty handed to Ingall sparked an outburst by team boss Paul Morris who made his point known.

“Obviously the guys upstairs know more about race car driving than we do,” Morris said. “They need to keep their noses out of our business.”

Regardless, Ingall still had a shot at the Armor All Top Ten Shootout courtesy of an earlier time, finishing fourth and on the second row of the grid for the first race.