McLaughlin edges Kelly in Darwin Practice 2

Scott McLaughlin beat Rick Kelly’s first flyer by just 0.04s to top Friday practice at Hidden Valley as Commodores continued to suffer front bar issues.

Kelly clocked a 1:06.1999s on his first timed lap in the #15 Castrol Altima, around 15 minutes after the Carrera Cup field had laid down rubber in their second practice session.

Only McLaughlin could better it when he set a 1:06.1587s in the last two minutes in the #17 Shell V-Power FGX Falcon, denying the Nissan Motorsport driver a sweep of the day’s two sessions at the CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown.

“We were one of the only ones that got a green (new tyre) gain from what we saw, so that was good,” said McLaughlin.

“But I think we just didn’t get that last sector right in regards to pressure and a few things so we need a little bit to work on. End of the time it’s P1 and that’s where we want to be.

The Kiwi did hypothesise that following the Porsches on-track for tomorrow’s Armor All Qualifying session could be pivotal in the outcome.

“That’s interesting seeing that at the start of qualifying we’re going to be rolling out on Porsche rubber, which is generally pretty fast so I’m sure you’ll see a lot of people run greens (at the start of the session),” he added.

Kelly said that he was pleased with his pace having focused on longer runs.

“(Engineer George Commins has) given me a very fast car, we’re just trying to focus a little bit more on the race run,” explained the 35-year-old.

“So I’m trying to make sure the car is really strong from that point of view, so we did two long race runs which filled the whole session there.”

Jamie Whincup, aided by new tyres like McLaughlin, was just over a tenth of a second slower again.

The 2017 champion appeared to be worst affected by the air dam vibrations experienced across multiple ZB Commodores throughout the day.

Both Red Bull entries suffered noticeably during Practice 2 with a replacement fitted to Whincup’s Car #1 around the quarter-hour mark, after which the problem appeared to diminish significantly.

Craig Lowndes and Shane van Gisbergen were fifth and sixth respectively in the other Triple Eight cars.

Splitting up the Banyo trio was Michael Caruso (#23 Drive Nissan Altima), who backed up his third placing in Practice 1 with a fourth position in the latter 45-minute session.

Rounding out the top 10 were David Reynolds (#9 Erebus Penrite ZB Commodore), Fabian Coulthard (#12 DJR Team Penske FGX Falcon), Andre Heimgartner (#7 Plus Fitness Nissan Altima), and Tim Blanchard (#21 CoolDrive ZB Commodore).

Cameron Waters (#6 Monster Energy FGX Falcon) was Tickford Racing’s best in the second practice session in 12th position, two higher than Chaz Mostert’s team benchmark from the midday hit-out.

James Courtney was the first of the Mobil 1 Boost Mobile ZB Commodores in 14th, while Brad Jones Racing wildcard entry Macauley Jones again rounded out the 27-car field.

The session was interrupted in the 16th minute to retrieve a stray bolt from the circuit, but no net time was lost with the delay just over two minutes.

The only other incidents of note were a handful of off-track excursions at Turn 1.

A third and final practice session, again scheduled for 45 minutes, will take place tomorrow at 1050 local time/1120 AEST.

Results: CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown Supercars Practice 2