 Before the start McCormack's crew discovered in the warm up that a blown head gasket in qualifying had resulted in damage to the 5.0L Leyland's cylinder heads but had no time to replace it so McCormack started under a cloud.Vern Schuppan qualified his Ansett Team Elfin MR8 3rd with a time equal to that of McRae with the Lola's of Alan Hamilton and Jon Davison rounding out the top 5 qualifiers.Ian Adams did not practice in his Lola T330, but was permitted to start the race from the rear of the grid.