Davison fastest in red flag-shortened Bathurst Practice 1

Shell V-Power Racing Team’s Will Davison has set the fastest lap in an opening practice session for the Repco Bathurst 1000 which was cut short by a second red flag.

In what was a relatively quick Practice 1 at Mount Panorama, Davison was sitting top on a 2:04.3691s in the #17 Ford Mustang when the session was brought to a halt with 3:28s left on the clock and ultimately declared due to Jake Kostecki’s (#56 Tradie Mustang) off at Hell Corner.

PremiAir Racing’s James Golding ended up second at just 0.0160s off the pace in the #31 Subway ZB Commodore, ahead of Andre Heimgartner (#8 R&J Batteries ZB Commodore), David Reynolds (#26 Penrite Mustang), and Nick Percat (#2 Mobil 1 NTI ZB Commodore).

The #97 Red Bull Ampol Racing entry of Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander was classified sixth after the former got away with a brush with the concrete wall at ‘The Tree’ (top of Reid Park) with about a quarter of an hour remaining.

It was a similar case for the #100 Shell V-Power Racing Team car of Anton De Pasquale and Tony D’Alberto in eighth position after the former looped his Mustang into the tyre wall at Forrest’s Elbow just minutes later.

CLICK HERE for more on those incidents

The immediately preceding Dunlop Super2 Series session finished with drivers on slicks given that the race line had largely dried out after earlier morning rain, and the three drivers who went out on wets at the start of Championship Practice 1 were straight back into the pits, perhaps having intended just to road said tyres.

Van Gisbergen (#97 ZB Commodore) kicked things off with a 2:10.7579s on slicks and was already down to a 2:07.5036s on his second flyer.

Will Davison clocked a 2:06.9191s next time through before 2021 race winner Chaz Mostert (#25 Mobil 1 Optus ZB Commodore) went 2:06.3110s once he was into his first run proper.

Triple Eight Race Engineering took rear wing off Car #97 and van Gisbergen was immediately down to a 2:06.0083s at the start of his second run, then a 2:05.3245s, 0.8969s up on the field, two laps later.

A red flag was called in the 24th minute after Cameron Waters (#6 Monster Energy Mustang), who had already had an innocuous off at The Chase, became beached at Murray’s Corner.

The field was let loose again five minutes later and Heimgartner had just improved to third on a 2:05.9006s when he too went off at Murray’s, but was able to drive the #8 R&J Batteries ZB Commodore out of there.

Reynolds was next to move the marker in clocking a 2:05.2410s in the 43rd minute of green flag running, just as van Gisbergen had his brush with the concrete and just before De Pasquale’s spin.

Heimgartner then set a 2:05.1322s before Will Davison clocked a 2:04.3691s on pre-marked tyres and Golding went second-quickest with a 2:04.3851s inside the final 10 minutes.

A second red flag was called with three-and-a-half minutes to go when Jake Kostecki, who had also been off at The Chase in the early stages, got his Mustang stuck in the kitty litter at Hell Corner.

That locked in a top 10 of Will Davison, Golding, Heimgartner, Reynolds, Percat, van Gisbergen, Broc Feeney (#88 Red Bull Ampol ZB Commodore), De Pasquale, Mostert, and 2021 race-winning co-driver Lee Holdsworth (#10 Penrite Mustang), while Waters ended up 13th and wildcard Craig Lowndes (#888 Supercheap Auto ZB Commodore) was 19th.

A handful of present-day co-drivers got laps in the session, including all three at Erebus Motorsport, Fabian Coulthard in Mostert’s #25 ZB Commodore, and Tander in Car #97 after van Gisbergen’s incident.

The #4 SCT Logistics ZB Commodore of Jack Smith and Jaxon Evans had a splitter flutter issue while the #51 Boost Mobile ZB Commodore of wildcards Richie Stanaway and Greg Murphy suffered a starter motor problem.

Practice 2, for co-drivers only, starts today at 15:55 local time/AEDT.

Results: Practice 1 All drivers