The Red Bull’s of Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup topped Quaifying 1 and 2 of the Melbourne 400 respectively, earning Whincup a prime opportunity for a potential win in his 500^th race weekend.

Eyes on the prize for Jamie Whincup -Image Red Bull

The Holden master lit up the middle sector of the Albert Park track in Qualifying 2 going point-one of a second clear of the Tickford Racing Mustang of Cam Waters, with a 01:55.2809s.

Whincup took some damage on Turn 1 resulting in a bent rim, but with a new tyre set he took to the track and set his top time.

Red Bull now hold both Pole Positions on offer so far this week, a valuable advantage given the limited passing opportunities around Albert Park.

But the X-factor of the weekend that may counter the advantage of pole is tyres says van Gisbergen.

“ It [Tyre difference] is quite big really, to see the lap times like two seconds two and a half seconds, Jamie’s run went off about two seconds in the session this morning, in the afternoon the hot session it might equal out, really you’ll only be able to do two or three laps on the hard and sit out the rest,

“It’s the tyres making racing better this year, hopefully the degradation happens, the weather is pretty hot, hopefully it stays hot, makes the racing good, last year was so spread out because of the cars, hopefully this year it’s closer, hopefully it makes it a bit closer with the strategy differences,” he said.

Will Davison for Milwaukee Racing has been ‘Mr. Consistency’ for season 2020, he now continues his run at the ‘pointy end’ qualifying third in both tomorrow’s races.

The big shock of the session was Penrite Racing’s David Reynolds who after an impressive second fastest in Practice 2.

Reynolds had a wide moment at Turn 12 earning him a curb-strike to his name deleting his time, he now slumps to 17^th for the start of Race 1 tomorrow