Caruso fastest in final Clipsal 500 practice

Michael Caruso put Nissan on top in the final practice session at the Clipsal 500 as teams turned their attention to race pace for this afternoon’s pair of 125km heats.

Caruso set the fastest two times of the 20 minutes, moving to the top midway through with a 1:21.22s before shaving a further 0.02s from the benchmark on the final of his three runs.

James Courtney and David Reynolds put their Holdens second and third ahead of Ford quartet Fabian Coulthard, Chaz Mostert, Mark Winterbottom and Scott Pye.

Jamie Whincup was eighth as Triple Eight focussed on evaluating the soft tyre over an extended stint.

The #88 Red Bull Holden completed 15 consecutive laps on the softs, with a 0.6s difference between his peak time of 1:20.6s and his final lap.

Team-mates Craig Lowndes and Shane van Gisbergen ran 12 and 15 consecutive laps respectively, with the former’s session including a wild trip down the Turn 4 escape road.

While admitting that topping the session means little ahead of the races, Caruso says he’s encouraged to have fixed issues that netted just a 14th place grid position for today’s soft tyre race.

“The car was quite good,” said Caruso of his session.

“We knew we didn’t get the most out of the car in qualifying yesterday but we found a bit of an issue on the car that they rectified which makes a big difference to the lap time.

“But the race is going to be a lot different than doing some quick laps in a row. It’s going to be bloody hot and some fierce racing no doubt.”

Result: V8 Supercars Clipsal 500 Practice 3