Randle tops Adelaide Supercars Practice 1 as Jones hits wall

Tickford Racing’s Thomas Randle has set the fastest lap in Supercars Championship Practice 1 at the Valo Adelaide 500 as Macauley Jones hit the wall at Turn 8.

A red flag was called with 59 seconds remaining in what was supposed to be a 30-minute session when Jones came to a stop at Turn 9 of the Adelaide Parklands Circuit.

Replays suggested that he may have been unsettled by the inside kerb at Turn 8, but the bump which the #96 TRG Transport Solutions subsequently made with the wall on drivers’ left was one of the more innocuous ones by the notorious sweeper’s standards.

Randle had clocked a 1:19.8035s in the #55 Castrol Mustang moments before the red flag came out, locking him into first position, from Brodie Kostecki (#99 Boost Mobile ZB Commodore), Cameron Waters (#6 Monster Energy Mustang), and champion-elect Shane van Gisbergen (#1 Red Bull Ampol ZB Commodore).

A couple of minutes before the Jones prang, there had been a bizarre incident in which teams were advised over the Race Management Channel to “Ignore the chequered flag”.

Indeed, the chequered flag was being hung over the main straight, yet there were still more than three minutes left on the clock at that point.

Earlier, the field rolled out under sunny skies and Chaz Mostert (#25 Mobil 1 Optus ZB Commodore) was quickest after the first flyers on a 1:22.3801s.

South Australian Scott Pye (#20 Toyota Forklifts ZB Commodore) then took the ascendancy with back-to-back 1:21.2680s and 1:20.6123s laps.

Van Gisbergen reportedly started the session on green tyres and went top with a 1:20.2576s right at the end of a relatively long first run in what is Car #1 this weekend, as a tribute to Holden in its final Australian Touring Car Championship event.

Pye hit back with a 1:20.3195s and then a 1:20.2558s, leaving van Gisbergen back in second after no improvement on his second run.

The Triple Eight Race Engineering driver did go quicker on this third run, with a 1:19.9722s around the time of the premature chequered flag incident, before Brodie Kostecki set a 1:19.8089s as more went for new tyre runs.

Waters climbed to second position on a 1:19.8771s but was shuffled back to third when Randle usurped him and Brodie Kostecki.

They would have no chance to respond to the rookie given the red flag came out with insufficient time to restart the session.

Behind Randle, Brodie Kostecki, Waters, and van Gisbergen on the timesheet was Andre Heimgartner (#8 R&J Batteries ZB Commodore) on a 1:20.1753s, from Pye on a 1:20.2558s.

Bryce Fullwood (#14 Middy’s ZB Commodore) took seventh and Mark Winterbottom (#18 Irwin Tools ZB Commodore) eighth, with Lee Holdsworth (#10 Penrite Mustang) doing enough for ninth despite losing more than 10 minutes in the Grove Racing garage due to an oil leak/excessive breathing.

Will Brown (#9 Boost Mobile ZB Commodore) rounded out the top 10, with Nick Percat (#2 Mobil 1 NTI ZB Commodore) 11th and Walkinshaw Andretti United team-mate Mostert 12th, while best of the Shell V-Power Racing Team duo was Anton De Pasquale (#11 Mustang) in 14th on a 1:20.6939s.

Practice 2, also scheduled for half an hour, is due to get underway tomorrow at 13:15 local time/13:45 AEDT.

Results: Practice 1