It was Adrien Simon who was able to beat his rivals to pole around the streets of Adelaide today, with teammate Ruiz completing a front row lockout for Porsche Mathershaw. However, the Frenchman certainly did things the hard way, as he had to rely on his first time set and was unable to complete a second run. Pre-Qualifying It was once again Arrow looking the fastest of those in Pre-Qualifying, with Takahashi being the only one in the session to dip below the minute mark to set the fastest time. It was a turnaround of fortunes for Halvosen who was second quickest while Addison continued Arrow's fine form. It was AMR that struggled to get their session going this time out, with Xylander once again putting in a Sterling effort to get his car on the grid - this time at the expense of Zozulya. However, Schnyder was also only just about safely through the session as well - a mere half a tenth separating him from Zientek, who was looking quick despite his crash yesterday. Highwind will definitely be emboldened by this result, and looking to capitalise on the expected high rates of attrition tomorrow. See full results below. Qualifying As the lights went green for Qualifying, drivers were hesitant to be first out of the pit garages, nobody wanting to lay down rubber for their competitor. Everybody was expecting Qualifying to get much faster as the track rubbered in. In the end it was Simon and Porsche Mathershaw who struck first, with a laptime that left a few on the pit wall slack-jawed. His lap was a good half a second quicker than anything anyone was able to set on their first run - a 59.2 right out of the gate. His rivals made several attempts to best it but it seemed an unbeatable lap; the Frenchman later being quoted as calling it a "once in a lifetime" performance. This was in a way extremely fortunate for him as, upon returning to the pits, the car was unable to get going again, and Simon had to sit out the rest of the session. Joining the Porsches in the top three was five time champion Nathaniel Powers, edging out Klaas van Snelheid fractionally by one thousandth of a second - a result that Lucas will be extremely happy with. Meanwhile it was a tough day for Downton, who only managed fourth and sixth, being split by the flying Columbian James Vasquez, who was looking formiddable all session and could be one to watch for tomorrow. Phoenix will be happy with both cars getting inside the top ten again - split by the Ocelot of Puccio Giodano who was able to make his machine work better today. Both North Stars qualified well after a terrible weekend in Japan, bouncing back to put their cars on the seventh row of the grid. Schnyder also looked to have recovered from his Pre Qualifying wobble, getting his car into P15, joined on his row by the FIRST of Klien . Following that, Xylander did an excellent job and qualified all the way up in P18, just one thousandth of a second away from Barclay ahead of him, and looking like a serious threat in the midfield yet again. Meyer scraped a top 20 start for Lopez, sandwiched by the two Franklins, although they definitely benefitted from the misery of others and none ever looked particularly close to those places on pace alone. The bottom five suffered from not being able to get a second run completed in the session; this was especially painful for Hunter Ryan who grew up in the suburbs of Adelaide and would have been hoping for a solid weekend. Unfortunately, the bottom five had gambled on going out as late as possible, which had left them time for one or two timed laps on extremely low fuel. This risk did not pay off, as a myriad of yellow flags through the dying minutes of the session meant lots of drivers having to routinely slow on their flying laps. Featuring two spins from Forini in the final sector two laps in a row, to Kinnumen locking up and going straight on at the Dequetteville hairpin, and Perez getting it wrong into turn one and ending up backwards in the run-off area it simply was not meant to be for those who had gambled, the streets of Adelaide biting back as soon as the drivers pushed even remotely beyond the limit. Once again, we saw a session massively influenced by mistakes, although fortunately lessons seem to have been learned from free practice with no big shunts today. In a race that looks as though it will be decided by survival, the drivers must keep their wits about them for the full distance tomorrow. As ever, we'll be bringing exclusive coverage of the event to you. We'll see you on the grid! See full Qualifying results below.
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