Craig Lowndes has put himself in a position make up points on V8 Supercars series leader Mark Winterbottom in Townsville’s Saturday races.

The Red Bull Racing driver out-qualified his Ford rival with sharp drives to sit on the third row for the pair of 125km races.

Holden Racing Team’s pair of James Courtney and Garth Tander will start on the front row in race one, while Fabian Coulthard will start on pole for race two.

Accompanying Coulthard on the front row for Saturday’s second race is Nick Percat, who starts without cars in front of him for the first time in his V8 career.

Courtney’s scintillating pace made him the only man to break 1 minute 13 seconds on the tropical street circuit, finishing with 1:12.8026.

While he faded to finish eighth for race two, his team celebrated the front-row lock-out.

“It really came alive on that fresh set of tyres,” he said.

The narrow qualifying windows of just 10 minutes for each race can be brutal, allowing for as few as two flying laps.

Winterbottom certainly felt that, qualifying 17th and 19th – the latter despite being less than half a second off the pace.

“It doesn’t feel good,” he said.

“It doesn’t feel like we’ve got a lot of grip… around this place it’s quite important.”

Scott McLaughlin had a good session in his Volvo and will start fourth for both races.

The first of Saturday’s races begins at 2:15pm.