From pole position, the leading Porsche Centre Melbourne Motorsport driver fended off early pressure from McElrea Racing’s Jackson Walls for a clear 2.9s victory while Earl Bamber Motorsport’s Dale Wood was third, a further 2.9s away.
As Jones covered Walls off the start, TekworkX’s David Russell slipped ahead of Wood while Fabian Coulthard was next in front of Dylan O’Keeffe, David Wall and Bayley Hall.
In the background, there was contact at Turn 1 between Tom McLennan and Ryder Quinn who spun. That brought out a brief Safety Car as Quinn was unable to refire. He did resume but retired stuck in second gear.
After the resumption Wood slipped past Russell to grab third on Lap 3, and Wall passed O’Keeffe on the next lap. On Lap 11 O’Keeffe lost a further place when overtaken by Hall at Turn 1.
A lap later at the same corner, under brakes Marco Giltrap had contact with Nash Morris who spun while Giltrap copped a 15s penalty.
Coulthard finished fifth, barely ahead of Wall while Hall was right with them. After eighth placed O’Keeffe, came Angel Mouzouris, Glen Wood, Harrison Goodman and Marcos Flack.
Behind the Equity-One Pro class, Adrian Flack won his sixth straight race in the TAG Heuer Pro-Am where he finished 12th just in front of Rodney Jane. Matt Slavin finished third in class while Matt Belford started second however, he spun at Turn 5 and was fifth in class behind Marc Cini.
There will be a further two races on Sunday at the betr Darwin Triple Crown with the Enduro Cup and another sprint race.
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