Team Australia duo on pace in V8 debut.

Team Australia's Champ Car World Series regulars Alex Tagliani and Marcus Marshall took little time in getting up to speed ahead of their competitive Australian V8 Supercar debut this weekend at Sandown Park.

Tagliani and Marshall will start Sunday's 500-kilometre, 161-lap race from 25th position in their WPS Racing Ford Falcon after qualifying just one and a half seconds slower than Garth Tander's pole time. Prior to the lone qualifying session, V8 debutant Tagliani had been amongst the top 20 in practice, which bodes well for a successful race on Sunday.

Both Marshall and Tagliani shared driving duties during qualifying with lead driver Marshall doing the bulk of the work. Marshall has been nominated to start Sunday's race and will find himself directly behind WPS teammates Craig Baird and David Besnard on the grid.

"The more time each of us spends behind the wheel the better we are adjusting to the whole set up of the car," said Marshall. "Today we were within a tenth of each other during qualifying and if we can maintain that in racing we'll be ok. The team's put together a good race package and there'll only be minor changes overnight."

Tagliani, who'll make his greatly anticipated V8 Supercar debut, is looking forward to his first racing stint behind the wheel and has made remarkable progress during a fast tracked six week introduction.

"All I wanted to do today was continue to develop a feel for the car and put together a couple of good laps," said the Canadian born driver. "WPS Racing is a growing team and I've always been intrigued by the power of V8 Supercars, so I feel very fortunate to be driving here.

"Marcus will start us off tomorrow and he has a lot of experience in long distance races, which will be valuable to us. We'll just stay out of trouble, make the right strategy calls and see how things work out."