Slade's car goes up in smoke in fiery end to qualifying

A dramatic engine failure for Holden's Tim Slade provided a fiery end to qualifying for the Gold Coast 600 V8 Supercars event.

The qualifying session ended in a plume of heavy smoke as Slade came into the pits with serious engine problems.

Slade, who finished third in Saturday's race along with co-driver Andre Heimgartner, drove his smoking Commodore into pit lane to give his team work to do before the race.

It is expected Brad Jones Racing will have the car repaired in time for the race which starts at 2.25pm (3.25pm AEDT).

Later in the day, defending Supercars champion Shane Van Gisbergen secured pole position for Sunday's 300km race.

The Red Bull Holden Racing Team driver clocked a fastest lap of 1min 10.8384sec to pip teammate Jamie Whincup (1:10.9044).

The championship-contending duo's front-row lockout compounds the struggles of DJR Team Penske rivals Scott McLaughlin and Fabian Coulthard, who both missed the top 10 shootout for pole.

Championship leader Coulthard will start Sunday's race from a lowly 22nd while McLaughlin, who has claimed 14 pole positions this year, could only qualify in 13th position.

Whincup, who hasn't led the title race at any point so far this year, heads into Sunday's 102-lap race trailing Coulthard in the championship standings by a mere 37 points.

Red Bull stablemate Craig Lowndes will start third on the grid after the Holden veteran posted a 1:11.0954 lap in the shootout.

"One-two-thre, how awesome is that?," Van Gisbergen said of the Triple Eight Race Engineering qualifying effort.

"I'm just so happy for all three of us to be up there."

Holden's James Courtney will start from fourth as Commodores make up the first two rows.

Ford star Chaz Mostert, whose victory on Saturday put him firmly back in the championship hunt, will start from fifth.