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Sheldon van der Linde had put the #32 Team WRT BMW on pole position and had the honour of the first driving stint, with Mikael Grenier behind the wheel of the #888 Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG in second place.
As is customary, the Safety Car led the field around Mount Panorama for the official first lap of the race, in the darkness at 05:45 local time.
It remained there for the first two laps, before the field was released just after 05:53 local time.
Sheldon van der Linde carried a second-plus lead across the stripe, from Grenier, Maro Engel (#130 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG), Laurens Vanthoor (#912 Manthey EMA Porsche), Luca Stolz (#75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes-AMG), Ricardo Feller (#2 Melbourne Performance Centre Audi), Kelvin van der Linde (#22 MPC Audi), Maxime Martin (#46 WRT BMW), Pro-Am pole-sitter Harry King (#911 Manthey EMA Porsche), and #88 Jamie Whincup (Triple Eight JMR Mercedes-AMG) rounding out the top 10.
The #701 Vortex, which is entered in the Invitational class, started from pit lane after Lionel Amrouche hit wall at Forrest’s Elbow on the out lap to the grid.
A total of 29 cars took the start, with just the Invitational class #50 Vantage Racing KTM withdrawn after a crash in Practice 4.
