Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport V8 Supercar driver, Nick Percat has made a spectacular return to karting, establishing the quickest time in practice for the elite KZ2 Gearbox category at the Australian Kart Championships at Melbourne’s Todd Road.

Percat is competing for the first time in more than 10 years at the upper level of Australian karting and has shown he is poised to be a strong contender in the new look Australian Championships, that has attracted 242 competitors from every state and territory of Australia.

“It feels awesome to be so competitive in my first event in karting in more than a decade,” said Percat.

“Everything ran very smoothly but it is far from easy out there.  Every lap you have to be on the edge, if you drop a tenth of a second it can lose five or six spots on the timesheets,” he said of the highly competitive KZ2 category that will reach speeds of 160kph at Todd Road.

“The competition is extremely tough and the calibre of drivers is very high.  I’m really looking forward to the challenges that the weekend will present.”

In KA Junior, Joshua Smith set the fastest time of the day narrowly ahead of Jordyn Sinni while South Australian Blake Purdie fired the first shot in the KA12 class to snare the fastest time by 0.02 seconds ahead of Tex Starr-McKoy.

FA Kart driver James Sera led the KA1 field while ex-dirt karter Joel Heinrich posted the fastest time in KA TaG.

Oscar Piastri was fastest in the KF3 class as was Liam McLellan aboard his JC Kart in KF2 and Bradley Jenner in X30.

Times from Saturday qualifying and racing can be viewed at www.race-monitor.com with live video coverage all day Sunday from www.karting.net.au. Entry is free for spectators at the Todd Road facility, Port Melbourne.