McLaughlin dominated Friday’s provisional qualifying session, opting to sit out most of the session after setting an early fastest lap of 2m04.3182s.

McLaughlin returning to the track only in the final minutes of qualifying to defend his time. There he improved to 2m04.2254s, a lap which remained unbeaten when the session was red flagged with one minute still remaining after James Moffat crashed his Commodore on top of the Mountain.

“The car’s feeling pretty good,” McLaughlin said. “I just tried to make the most of it. I’ve got a lot of confidence in the car; it’s pretty awesome – and that speed there’s a lot going on!”

McLaughlin, who is the current Supercars championship points leader, headed Erebus Penrite Commodore driver David Reynolds, and a convoy of four other Fords.

The PRA Falcons of Chaz Mostert, Cam Waters and Mark Winterbottom were third, fourth and fifth fastest respectively. With Fabian Coulthard, driving the second Shell V-Power Racing Falcon, taking sixth fastest, five of the fastest six cars were Fords.

Capping off an extraordinarily successful day for Ford, ninth fastest for Jason Bright meant that all six Fords in the field have qualified for Saturday afternoon’s top 10 shootout.

The shootout will determine the starting grid positions for the top 10 for Sunday’s race.