Holden’s Craig Lowndes has made the start to the V8 Supercar season he wanted, qualifying on pole for the opening race of the Clipsal 500.

Team Vodafone’s Lowndes, pipped for the championship by team-mate Jamie Whincup last year, produced a sizzling 1min 21.2738sec lap to edge out Holden’s Garth Tander (1:21.2908) in the top-10 shootout around the Adelaide street circuit on Friday.

Ford Performance Racing’s Will Davison was third fastest, building on his solid performances in practice earlier in the day.

Whincup will start from fifth on the grid for Saturday’s opening 250km race, just behind surprise packet Jonathon Webb’s Holden.

Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney was the highest-profile casualty of qualifying, failing to make the top-10 shootout.

He will start from 13th place on Saturday.

Ford’s Mark Winterbottom will start from seventh on the grid despite taking a broken leg into the weekend’s racing.

Winterbottom was the quickest in two Friday practice sessions and early qualifying, despite breaking his leg eight weeks ago while waterskiing.

Lowndes, who has just signed a new three-year deal to remain at Team Vodafone, stressed the importance of starting the season well after finishing so strongly in 2011 only to just miss out to Whincup.

“I was hoping to pick up exactly where I left off. Clipsal is the hardest event of the year and it’s so important to get off to a good start,” Lowndes said.

“At the end of last year, we were up and running and now we’ve hit the ground running.”

After Saturday’s opener, a second 250km race is scheduled for Sunday.