In January the supremely talented 31-year-old won the New Zealand Grand Prix after starting from pit lane and he has since gone on to be unbeaten in the Supercars series.

Before he clocked the two minutes, 25.4399 lap which secured him pole position in the 6 Hour for the first time, he had taken out the first one-hour GT World Challenge Australia race of the Bathurst round alongside Prince Jefri Ibrahim in Triple Eight's Mercedes Benz AMG GT3.

The star Kiwi is no stranger to position one on the grid at the Mount.

In February he snared pole position for the second race of the inaugural Bathurst 500, in 2016 he produced a scorching 2:01.286 lap to top qualifying for the Bathurst 12 Hour, while in 2104 he was the fastest man in the top 10 shootout for the Bathurst 1000.

Having topped both practice one (2:27.4380) and practice two (2:25.9092) on Friday at the Mount, van Gisbergen sat out the third practice session on Saturday morning to allow his co-drivers Shane Smollen and Rob Rubis to get seat time.

But he was back behind the wheel of the #97 Prestige Connex BMW M4 for qualifying.

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The first 20 minutes of qualifying involved the bottom 50 percent of the field after practice and it was 17-year-old Bayley Hall who topped the sheet behind the wheel of a Ford Mustang with a 2:34.5167.

But the battle for pole came in the 20-minute session which followed.

Van Gisbergen went straight to the top of the leaderboard on his out lap then with his second lap secured pole.

His 2:25.4399 gave him a 0.0323 seconds buffer over David Russell, making it the closest battle for pole in the history of the Bathurst 6 Hour.

Russell earned his spot on the front row with a 2:25.4722 in the Sherrin Rentals BMW M4.

The second row of the grid was another pair of BMWs. Position three went to Orange's Tim Leahey (2:26.3222), while Tim Slade peeled off a 2:26.6470.

Bathurst driver Grant Denyer (2:29.9522), in the Local Legends Ford Mustang GT, did the 13^th fastest outright lap and the third fastest of any of the A2 class entries.

The Bathurst 6 Hour starts 11.15am Sunday.

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