McLaughlin blitzes final Darwin practice

DJR Team Penske returned to the top of the timesheets as Scott McLaughlin set a record pace in the final practice session of the CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown at Hidden Valley Raceway.

The New Zealander held the top spot for the majority of the 45-minute session, which was held in much cooler ambient conditions compared to Friday.

McLaughlin posted a 1:06.06s to dislodge early pacesetter Rick Kelly before going on to lower his benchmark to an impressive new practice record of 1:05.56s in the final minutes.

“The track’s a little bit cooler than it probably will be in qualifying or yesterday, so we were quite lucky there,” said McLaughlin.

“The car was great and ran on a set of tyres there just to have a good feel for qualifying and it went down okay.”

A late showing from Erebus Motorsport’s David Reynolds saw him climb to second in the final moments, just 0.17s adrift of McLaughlin.

Michael Caruso occupied third as Nissan Motorsport displayed an improvement on the pace it displayed yesterday.

Craig Lowndes emerged as the top Triple Eight runner in fourth ahead of championship leader Fabian Coulthard (DJR Team Penske) and Friday’s pacesetter Jamie Whincup.

Rick Kelly ensured there were two Nissans inside the top 10, in seventh in front of Brad Jones Racing’s Tim Slade.

The top eight all posted times under the previous 1:06.03s practice record held by Lowndes.

Reigning champion Shane van Gisbergen struggled for pace for the most part of the session, before popping in a time to lift him from 20th to ninth late in the session.

The New Zealander was convinced there was something broken on his car during Friday, which prompted Triple Eight to undergo several changes to identify the cause of the balance issue.

“It is good we will just see where we go in qualifying,” said a terse van Gisbergen.

“We didn’t go all out there we will see what happens in qualifying.

“It feels better than yesterday.”

Garry Rogers Motorsport’s James Moffat rounded out the top 10 while Chaz Mostert was the top Prodrive runner in 11th spot, just ahead of Mobil 1 HSV Racing’s James Courtney.

Mark Winterbottom was a notable absentee from the top 10 as he battled understeer with his Falcon on the way to 20th.

“We just made the car slower as the session went on and had a lot of understeer, so it was really hard to drive but thankfully that was practice, not qualifying,” said Winterbottom.

Tekno Autosports’ Will Davison was forced to sit out the majority of the session due to a transaxle issue on his Commodore.

The team changed the component overnight but a problem with the part forced the squad to make further alterations.

Davison, who logged four laps, is confident a solution will be found before qualifying.

Meanwhile, Macauley Jones edged Jack Le Brocq to 22nd in the battle of the wildcard runners.

The Supercars field will return for a 15 minute qualifying session at 1350 local time ahead of a 42-lap race (1615).

Result: Virgin Australia Supercars Championship: CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown: Practice 3