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Australian young gun Matthew Campbell outshone his more experienced rivals to set the fastest officially recorded lap of Mount Panorama in final practice for the Bathurst 12 Hour.
The 20-year-old Carrera Cup star clocked a sizzling 2:02.29s with eight of the session’s 60 minutes remaining to move to the top spot.
Campbell’s time in the Objective Racing McLaren was enough to edge out Erebus Motorsport’s Maro Engel’s earlier benchmark by just 0.1s.
Rene Rast put his Phoenix Audi third fastest with 2:02.44s moments prior to a red flag that ended the session six minutes early.
The top three were all under Laurens Vanthoor’s 2:03.55s pole time from 12 months ago.
“The track conditions are really, really good and I feel comfortable in the car,” said Campbell, who had scored pole for the Carrera Cup event at Bathurst last October.
“It has lots of aero, ABS and traction control and it suits this track really well
“I think the track conditions will be a bit hotter in qualifying, but we’ll see how it goes.”
The #59 Tekno McLaren, #74 Jamec Pem Audi, #60 Tekno McLaren, #10 Bentley and #36 Erebus Mercedes were also within a second of the ultimate pace at the end of the session.
The late red flag was called to retrieve the #48 M Motorsport Lamborghini from the Hell Corner gravel trap after it spun and made contact with the outside wall.
A stoppage had earlier been required just seconds into the session when the #93 MARC Focus spun at The Cutting.
Another to strike trouble was the #82 International Motorsport Audi, which headed to the garage after touching the wall through The Esses.
Qualifying will take place over two sessions with a 60 minute full field hit-out from 1255 followed immediately by a 20 minute, Class A only finale.
