Whincup wins pole position at Bathurst Jamie Whincup celebrates after taking pole position. Jamie Whincup took another step closer to V8 Supercar immortality by claiming his first pole position for the Bathurst 1000. The Red Bull driver put in a full commitment lap around the demanding, 6.2-kilometre mountain circuit to beat his arch-rival, Ford's Mark Winterbottom. While it was his first Mount Panorama pole, it was far from Whincup's first fastest lap. With his lap he became the first active driver to reach 50 pole positions. But the four-time race winner is not thinking about his fifth win yet. He knows the race will be a much tougher challenge than pole position - 160 times harder. "It's going to be a long, tough race, like it always is," he said. But after being fastest in qualifying, the shootout and the defending race winner - as well as having the very capable Paul Dumbrell as co-driver - Whincup is feeling confident. "I think we've got as good a chance as anyone," he said. Winterbottom may have missed pole but he is feeling confident of his chances to get revenge on Whincup and Holden in the race. "Front row, you can't complain about that," the Ford driver said. We're in a good position to win the race. Speed has never been Ford Performance Racing's problem at Bathurst though. The team has struggled with pit stop problems and bad strategy, but Winterbottom believes all the bugs are ironed out. In some respects it was a bizarre qualifying shootout, with cars sliding and skimming the walls, but there was very little in the way of changes to the grid. Only Shane Van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin made up any positions, at the expense of James Courtney and David Reynolds. Whincup's teammate Craig Lowndes was a subdued sixth fastest. The five-time race winner is still a threat but failed to fire on his single flying lap. ■Ford will stay in V8 Supercars for at least another year after ending long-running speculation that it would pull out at the end of this season. In an unexpected announcement on Saturday, Ford Australia president Bob Graziano confirmed the company had renewed its backing of Ford Performance Racing, which has been the Blue Oval's main factory-backed team for a decade. But Graziano would not comment on the length of Ford's commitment or the level of funding, other than to say the partnership would continue in 2014. "We're not talking about the specifics of the agreement," he said. That's between Ford and FPR. Today, it's just all about the fact we're continuing the relationship so that people can get their mind off of that and get back to racing. Ford has been a major backer of several leading Falcon teams for two decades.