Caruso fastest in morning SMP test

Michael Caruso topped the times for Nissan Motorsport in the morning session of the pre-season test at Sydney Motorsport Park.

The 34-year-old, driving a brand new Altima, posted a 1:29.17s a third of the way through the three and half hour session held in hot and breezy conditions.

Teams were using various forms of tyres with 2017 softs and rubber used at Bathurst, the same specification as the new 2018 Dunlop tyres, in circulation.

Speedcafe.com understands that brand new 2018 tyres will be saved for this afternoon’s four hour session.

Nissan occupied the top two spots with Rick Kelly second quickest despite suffering a steering issue during the session that saw the car spend time in the garage.

Shell V-Power Racing’s Fabian Coulthard was third in his brand new Ford Falcon, 0.4s adrift the pace.

David Reynolds ended up fourth after his new Holden ZB Commodore lost its passenger door in the closing minutes of the session.

Erebus were able to repair the damage and returned the car to the track.

Teams used the session to cycle through co-drivers with Erebus offering track time to Luke Youlden and Will Brown.

Tickford Racing also made use of the opportunity to cycle its co-drivers as Dean Canto and new signing James Moffat cutting laps.

Moffat jumped in the #55 Tickford Ford driven by Chaz Mostert.

Jonathon Webb also logged laps in the #19 Tekno Autosports entry of Jack Le Brocq before an incident on track, which progressed into an altercation in pit-lane with Shane van Gisbergen.

Scott Pye was fifth in the Walkinshaw Andretti United Holden ahead of the Triple Eight Autobarn Commodore of Craig Lowndes.

Le Brocq emerged as the top rookie in seventh while the top 10 was completed by James Courtney (Walkinshaw Andretti United), Anton de Pasquale (Erebus Motorsport) and Will Davison in the 23Red Racing Falcon.

RESULTS: Pre-season test, morning session