'Just crap': Frustrated Brodie Kostecki clinches pole with record-breaking lap in a thriller

Reigning Bathurst 1000 champion Brodie Kostecki took pole at Mount Panorama on Friday afternoon but still expressed frustration, despite clocking a time of 2:04.030 seconds, placing him on top in qualifying in a nail-bitingly close session.

The Shell V-Power driver also broke the Gen 3 qualifying record in Bathurst, leaving Triple Eight's Broc Feeney to settle for second only 0.006s off the top spot.

Feeney, who was pipped for his 15th Supercars pole of the season, will be joined by Ryan Wood, Anton De Pasquale, Cooper Murray, Chaz Mostert, Cam Waters, Cameron Hill, Nick Percat and Thomas Randle in the top-10 shootout on Saturday.

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Despite a strong day on the track, Kostecki cut a frustrated figure, calling for changes.

"We need to get our upgrade to fix the deficit to the Camaro's – 2k's an hour on average and it's a bit disappointing nothing's been done about it after a report's been published. It's just crap," he said.

When a reporter pointed out Kostecki had the fastest car on Friday, he responded: "Doesn't matter".

"The system's pretty flawed – the best way to put it is, it's like a footy grand final, points are tied and there's a free kick and you have to ask the other side to miss the free kick to win the grand final. It's pretty disappointing for everyone that's on the Ford side," he said

"It's going to make it incredibly difficult come Sunday.

"We're doing the best job we can with what we've got."

Kostecki added: " I wasn't really too sure how good we were, but we're just making small adjustments to the car and ... that's our typical bush fashion, right?" Kostecki said.

"Right at the death of dawn.

"We've put ourselves in a really good spot for the shootout so hopefully lots of clouds will come and ... help us out.

"It's incredibly close here this weekend and it's the closest it's ever been, it feels like.

"It's so competitive in this category and I truly, truly believe we have the most competitive category in the world. It's been a bit of a slog this year, trying to get a little bit more consistent, get a bit more speed out of the Shell-V Power [Ford] Mustang.

"That's probably one of the best laps I've ever done around here."

Six-time Bathurst 1000 winner Mark Skaife said the margin for error was so small during practice, it was like a qualifying session.

"When I looked at the top 10, what was going to be the margin for first to 10th?" he said on Fox Sports.

"It was three tenths in practice four and I thought that was remarkable.

"It ends up two tenths of a second across the top 10 cars.

"You'd have to say that Kostecki and Feeney will be the favourites, but there's a lot of cars that are in contention. Cooper Murray, super impressive in that qualifying session.

"It's still wide open. There's still time for everyone to tune it up and try and find where they can find a bit more pace here on The Mountain."

Kostecki came out the gates early with a blistering time of 2:04.779s to place himself on top in the early stages of the session.

De Pasquale pipped the 27-year-old and Will Brown with a time of 2:04.677s, and Will Davison hit the wall in the early part of qualifying, with multiple cars having near misses at the exit of Forrest's Elbow.

Halfway through the session, it was Erebus Motorsport's Cooper Murray on top with a 2:04.362s. The rookie bettered himself with a 2:04.093s but top honours were snatched by Feeney.

In the final stages of qualifying, the field of 27 descended on The Mountain and it was Kostecki, who is known for his dominance of the 'great race', who came out on top for his pairing with Todd Hazelwood.

This will leave him to have the final slot in the top 10 shootout on Saturday, where the 10 fastest qualifiers will battle for their position in Sunday's race.

"It's such a cool place and qualifying around here is my favourite time of the year," said second-fastest Feeney.

"You get to go flat out around this awesome track, and on this [soft] tyre this year, it's bloody fast.

"We rolled out really strong and were at the front edge for that whole session. My reference lap was out in the last lap, so I thought I'd done a three [2:03s] and [I crossed] the line and went slower.

"So I was bummed with that but [the] car's been really good. We've been working a lot on the race car so it's good to have a fast [qualifying] car, as well."

After his crash the day before, Mostert was able to improve greatly and put himself right in the pack to aim for the top spot in the shootout.

Before the shootout, racing will resume on Saturday with a co-driver-only practice at 10:05am AEDT.