Courtney gets payback for '06.

Jeld-Wen Motorsport's James Courtney claimed his maiden V8 Supercar pole position by posting fastest time in the new-look qualifying session at the Clipsal 500, at the same time conquering the demons that plagued his first appearance at the Adelaide circuit in 2006.

Topping the timesheets in both the second and third legs of F1-style qualifying, the 2006 rookie of the year overcame searing 37-degree heat to open his season in style, displaying unalloyed confidence as he banished memories of a crash-strewn debut weekend a year ago. Joining Stone Brothers Racing for his first solo ride in the V8 Supercar series, the former F1 test driver crashed in both legs of the Clipsal 500, but is now poised to repay the team's efforts over the rest of the season.

"The guys were a little bit nervous about coming back here, so it was good to pay them back," Courtney admitted, "They've been working some crazy hours over the break getting the cars ready, while it was also good to give Ross and Jimmy [Stone] something to repay their faith in me.

"There was a lot of soul-searching after this round last year, but the turning point was really at Queensland when I ran with Garth [Tander] for most of the event and just missed the podium. It was probably the turning point for my V8 Supercar career and it's just got stronger and stronger. I knew what I had done wrong and knew what I had to do to fix it. I was confident that the car would have the speed this year and it's all come together nicely. I'm looking to carry that on for the rest of the year now."

Courtney and SBR team-mate Russell Ingall began the weekend as they mean to go on, clocking seventh and eighth fastest times in opening practice and, although practice two did not go as planned with both missing much of the session while problems were ironed out, both returned to claim top ten slots on the grid for the first of the weekend's two 250-mile races.

"We definitely had good speed on our test day last week," Courtney reflected, "We didn't run new tyres on the Jeld-Wen Falcon and we did a good time for the tyres we had. We knew that we had quite good pace and we would be somewhere near the front. We've been pushing really hard for this. I'm not going to lie and say that we knew we were going to take pole - that's a nice surprise, a great result and I'm super happy."