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The Kiwi led the Red Bull Holden double in 20 minutes of qualifying, van Gisbergen finishing 0.3 seconds behind teammate Jamie Whincup.
This means that the pair will race at the end of this morning's Top 10 Shootout, which will define the first five rows of the grid for the first 300km race.
Whincup scored the pace of the day by staying 10 minutes from the minute with a time of 1m10.454.
Scott McLaughlin, van Gisbergen and Reynolds improved at about the same time to narrow the gap to one-tenth before Reynolds took the lead with a time of 1m10.422 at seven minutes from the end .
Confident that time would be enough for the Top 10, Reynolds chose to jump from his car and keep a set of tires for the Shootout.
And that meant the Red Bulls had a chance to place him on provisional pole, van Gisbergen and Whincup having waited for their second set of gum for the final seconds of the session.
"The car was good and we managed to do it with two pairs of tires," van Gisbergen said.
"We have another new set for the Shootout, then a spare set for tomorrow if we need it.
"It's a tricky line here, I had a stop-strike on my first lap in the first round, which reinforced your self-confidence because you do not know where the limit is.
"Then I had to build during the towers, and you also have the walls, so there are some problems, but we had time."
Reynolds and McLaughlin finished third and fourth, respectively, while James Courtney jumped from tenth to the fifth-row security-and to the right of the bubble Shootout-in his last visit.
A first time Fabian Coulthard left it sixth, while Chaz Mostert, Michael Caruso, Nick Percat and Cam Waters made the final try to win the Shootout places.
Rick Kelly was the unlucky one to miss a spot in the scorecard one round, finishing in 11th place.
Craig Lowndes finished off his Triple Eight teammates with a rare showdown with Richie Stanaway at the end of the session.
The Tickford driver was on a fast lap when he came across the Bathurst winner warming his tires across the width of the track.
Stanaway had nowhere to go and crashed in the back of the T8 Holden.
Lowndes was hit with a penalty of five spots on the grid and will start the race in 21st place.
"It's one of those things. We are all talking about traffic in the vicinity and unfortunately, I was one of them today, "Lowndes said.
"We went out for this race, I looked in the mirrors, all I could see was [Jack] The Brocq behind me and suddenly he disappeared and Richie came on the scene.
"I'm going to apologize to him, that was my mistake, I should have moved away from his path, but in the same way, it's hard to get out of there.
"There was no information [from my team]I was just told that I was going out with the train and that everyone had to follow the same program. "
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