Jason Bright remains on top of Sydney test

Brad Jones Racing has got its season off to a flying start at Sydney Motorsport Park, with Jason Bright edging Fabian Coulthard for the top spot in both the day’s morning and afternoon test sessions.

The team’s speed came despite not having the opportunity to run their cars in VF configuration prior to the test.

Third at the end of the afternoon running was Craig Lowndes. The Red Bull Racing Australia pilot was in the top two for much of the session, while his team-mate Jamie Whincup had largely set the pace until the final 15 minutes of running.

A flurry of fast times were laid down in the last quarter hour, with differing tyre banks helping to scramble the order.

The Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport cars were both in the thick of the action, with Dean Fiore fourth and Scott Pye sixth.

Rick Kelly was one of the drivers that popped in with a quick time, sitting atop the timesheets for a short little while before drifting back to fifth place in his Jack Daniel’s Nissan.

Whincup ended proceedings seventh with David Reynolds, Mark Winterbottom and Jonathon Webb rounding out the top 10.

From there it was James Courtney in the HRT machine followed by Shane Van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin.

Maro Engel was the best of the new Erebus Motorsport AMG E-Class machines in 14th, impressively sitting inside the top 10 at one stage in the SP Tools machine.

He was followed by Russell Ingall, Will Davison, David Wall, Garth Tander and Tim Slade in the Heavy Haulage Australia AMG. Tony D’Alberto was 20th with Alex Davison behind him, the second of the Europeans in Alex Premat, James Moffat and Lee Holdsworth.

Tim Blanchard in the DJR Falcon was again the field’s rear gunner, 4.7 seconds off the quickest time aboard the newly built machine.

The day’s proceedings included a scheduled 70 minute midday pause for an autograph session, which saw fans flock onto the pit straight to mingle with the cars and drivers.

Clouds that had rolled in during the morning delivered on their threat during the break however, leaving the second session to start under wet track conditions.

The vast majority stayed garage-bound in the fully wet weather – electing against the added expensive of rolling out grooved tyres.

The track dried by the time the double-file rolling restart practice took place at 1430, which approximately half the field elected to take part in.

While further drizzle appeared briefly during the afternoon, it cleared in time for the late ‘happy hour’ laps.

A crowd of over 17,000 was claimed by V8 Supercars, making it the most popular of the pre-season tests held annually by the category since 2011.

See below for the full times from the afternoon session