Series returnee Hayden Bakkerus clocked a record lap to blitz the field and take the first pole position of the new Bridgestone GR86 Championship at Taupo International Motorsport Park this morning.

Mackenzie Motorsport’s Hayden was fastest on his first flying lap, ahead of Australian Cooper Barnes and Chris White – who had been fast in Friday testing. That was until Friday’s fastest Hugo Allan came by on his first flyer to lower the benchmark to 1:40.706.

Bakkerus then responded with a stunning 1:40.200 to edge series debutant Josh Bethune by just four one-hundredths of a second and Mackenzie team mate and fastest rookie Zach Blincoe by a further two tenths. Blincoe and White’s next effort pushed Allan down to fifth in a fierce first eight minutes of the season.

Hugo’s next two laps were quicker, but only good enough to move him up to third, just under three tenths off Bakkerus’ astonishing lap – the fastest of the weekend to date and the fastest ever for the GR86 around the Taupo track. The top runners would remain in that order for the remainder of the 20 minute qualifying session.

Bakkerus had been something of a stalking horse in testing, quietly getting on with learning the tyres and the new car, never really featuring regularly at the front. He was when it mattered though.

“There were a few different things we did from testing,” he said after qualifying. “Usually the first lap is the fastest but I got held up on that and had to have another go on the second lap. The second lap didn’t feel perfect either as I still had to make a pass into turn one.

“It’s a great feeling to find that when it matters we are on the pace. In testing we were running between tenth and 15th but nobody really knows what the others are doing, so it’s very exciting to find we’ve been heading in the right direction and I’m excited about the first race and the rest of the weekend.”

Justin Allen – one of only three drivers from last year’s championship to make the top ten – was another to put in an early flyer to go sixth fastest, while Australian Cooper Barnes was just a couple of hundredths of a second behind him in seventh.

Rookies Arthur Broughan and Emerson Vincent were next up in eighth and ninth, with Alice Buckley rounding out the top ten. Eleven drivers went under the 1 minute 41 second barrier, with the top 20 cars in the huge 25 field covered by just over one second. Top Master class runner John Penny was an early top ten runner, but ended the session 12th fastest overall for a sixth row starting spot.

Ajay Giddy – the youngest in the high quality field at just 13 years old – put in a commendable performance to line up sixteenth fastest, just nine tenths of a second off pole position.