HE may be best remembered for a spectacular crash in 2010 at The Chase, but Holden’s Fabian Coulthard will be a happy man as he arrives at Mount Panorama on Saturday after another record-breaking qualifying session.

Qualifying was an eventful process, with cars leaving the track on a regular basis, but in the dying stages Coulthard put the attention back on the clock as he lowered the track record to two minutes, 5.608 seconds.

Earlier in the day during practice, defending champion Mark Winterbottom had broken new ground with a 2:05.9011.

He took the record from David Reynolds, who had set the benchmark himself only a day earlier.

With his last lap, Shane van Gisbergen also broke Winterbottom’s time, and a huge shock came in the final seconds of the session when the unheralded Dale Wood flew into third spot ahead of the Top 10 Shootout tomorrow.

Coulthard’s sizzling effort came after Reynolds had lost a wheel as he smashed into the wall at Sulman Park, and he will start from the back of the grid.

Only minutes later, championship leader Jamie Whincup suffered a similar though not as serious fate when he ran wide at The Cutting.

He will join Reynolds on the back row when the race starts on Sunday.

For the time being, though, Coulthard and Lockwood Racing team-mate Luke Youlden are the centre of attention – and after a lot of hardships in his decade of racing here, the New Zealander was understandably pleased.

“It feels awesome. The car was phenomenal [for that lap] and we tuned it up over the entire run,” he said.

“I was happy we could make the gains that we made. To have the outright qualifying lap record is pretty cool.

“I’m not sure if it will be enough to hold the record, though. I think the times might tumble a bit further tomorrow.”

Coulthard famously somehow walked away completely unscathed after flipping his car through the sand at The Chase four years ago and in general hasn’t had a good time of it at the biggest race of the year.

But he suddenly has a chance to set himself up if he can replicate today’s pace during the shootout and put himself on the front row.

“The fact that I’m the last car means I’ll know everyone’s times before I start,” he said.

“I’ll have to put my head down and do whatever I can to beat it.”

Despite the speed of the leaders, it was a treacherous afternoon. Reynolds, especially, did plenty of damage to the rear of the Bottle-O Falcon he drove so well a day before.

Whincup’s mishap wasn’t so nasty but, given his general levels of success at the venue, he would have been disappointed to exit qualifying in such fashion.

Van Gisbergen’s late lap was enough to make for an all-New Zealand top two, even though he too had a couple of near misses.

“It has been a tough week so far, to be honest. We’ve really struggled with the car. I don’t think I’ve ever hit the wall so many times,” he said.

“With new tyres on we were all over the place and we have a lot of work to do on the car before the race.

“For us Kiwis it is pretty cool to be doing as well as we are. We’ve all got good cars and good opportunities.

“I think I can go faster. I was pretty close to him [Coulthard] and I didn’t do the perfect lap by any means, though he can probably say the same thing.”