Skaife blitzes qualifying at Bathurst.

By Matthew Agius

Holden Racing Team leader Mark Skaife has snatched provisional pole by a near record lap at Mount Panorama today as he steered the #2 black-bonneted Holden VZ Commodore around the 6.213 kilometre circuit.

Skaife will now start last in the top ten shootout for Sunday's race - giving him maximum opportunity to attack the mountain for pole for the classic 1000 kilometre enduro. Incredibly, the lap was just over a tenth of a second slower than Greg Murphy's shootout lap in 2003. Making the lap even more impressive was that Murphy's lap was on a resurfaced track, whereas Skaife's qualifying effort was done on three year old tarmac.

"I think there are probably a couple of tenths of seconds left in the car. On the second set of tyres I had a fair bit of a 'whoops' in the Chase and that didn't make the end of the lap as nice as I would have liked," said Skaife.

"There's certainly a bit more time in it but it was one of those laps where you are 100 percent committed and one of those tracks you have to be like that but not make a mistake at the same time.

"The track conditions tomorrow will be what makes the difference as to whether breaking Murph's record is possible. If it as good as it was today we are capable of doing a 2m06.5s, but if it's slower then I think we'd be aiming for a low 2m07s lap."

Skaife's co-driver, Garth Tander, is placed third in the championship and is looking forward to a good performance tomorrow and on Sunday.

"It was a pretty good day from where I was in the garage during qualifying! When I jumped out of the car after the morning practice session I said to Skaifey that I had no doubt the car was good to do a 2m06s lap," said Tander.

"We fine tuned the car all day and it was actually a fair bit warmer on track in the qualifying session than it had been earlier in the day in the practice session. We've struggled for front tyre temperature in the early part of the lap in the first sector so that's an area we'll focus on."

Narrowly missing a shootout spot, Jim Richards was the fastest non-full time driver in qualifying and placed the second Holden Racing Team Commodore on twelfth spot for Sunday's race.

"We had a good day. It would have been great to get into the Top 10 but considering the level of the competition in V8 Supercars these days and to get in being a part time driver in the category, I thought we went really well. Now the boys can concentrate on getting the car ready for the race," said Richards.

The Holden Racing Team are the defending Supercheap Auto Racing 1000 champions.