De Pasquale fastest in Practice 1 at Phillip Island

Anton De Pasquale has gone fastest after the chequered flag in Practice 1 at the WD-40 Phillip Island SuperSprint.

The Penrite Racing driver elevated himself from 17th to first with a 1:31.3181s which put him 0.1893s ahead of previous fast man Will Davison, while Rick Kelly ended up just 0.0096s slower again with an even later lap in the #15 Castrol Altima.

Scott McLaughlin spent a majority of the session on top of the timing screen but was shuffled back to fourth from the final minute of the half-hour hit-out, while Shane van Gisbergen was fifth fastest.

The latter’s Red Bull Holden Racing Team team-mate Jamie Whincup, on the other hand, found himself 23rd in the 24-car field.

McLaughlin was fastest after the first runs having clocked a 1:31.7248s in the #17 Shell V-Power Racing Mustang.

That effort came moments before a red flag was called due to the presence of two geese on the side of the track on the run to The Hayshed, with a replay showing that van Gisbergen’s #97 Triple Eight ZB Commodore had barely missed them.

McLaughlin only made one more run, which he stretched to the end of the session.

He improved multiple times to ultimately set a personal best of 1:31.5947s, and even recorded the fastest first sector on the eighth lap of his latter run.

Davison was first to jump him, from 15th in the order in the #23 Milwaukee Mustang, before De Pasquale went even faster in the #99 ZB Commodore.

Kelly came from 14th to third, while van Gisbergen got as high as second position during the session.

“It definitely feels a bit more of a handful than what it did last year,” said De Pasquale.

“Looks like everyone is in a very similar boat; it feels very much similar to what it did at the start of the year (test day).

“We sort of know where our package is, but still a lot of work to do, early days. We’ll find out more this afternoon where we’re at.”

Lee Holdsworth (#5 The Bottle-O Mustang) was sixth, from Chaz Mostert (#55 Supercheap Auto Musatng), Mark Winterbottom (#18 Irwin Racing ZB Commodore), Scott Pye (#200 Mobil 1 Mega ZB Commodore), and Cameron Waters (#6 Monster Energy Mustang).

Whincup was not especially worried about the #88 ZB Commodore sitting near the foot of the timesheet.

“No cause for concern,” he said.

“We’re not speedy yet. The car’s similar to the test day here and not a hundred percent.

“We’ve got a good program to go through, we didn’t put tyres on at the end there either; a little bit artificial.

“In saying that, I’m not saying we’re going to jump to the front. Still got plenty of work to do.

“Grand Prix (Albert Park), Tassie, even Adelaide was pretty good. The test day and now here this weekend, the car is not suited to Phillip Island at all. But we’ll work it out.”

Other notables were Fabian Coulthard (#12 DJR Team Penske Mustang) in 13th and David Reynolds (#9 Erebus ZB Commodore) in 14th, in what was an incident-free session aside from the appearance of the local wildlife.

Practice 2 (30 minutes) for the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship field, which sets the starting order for Armor All Qualifying for Race 9, starts at 1510 local time/AEST.

Results: Practice 1