Tony Ricciardello snatched the National Sports Sedan Series Race 1 win from Jordan Caruso at Winton Raceway in the first turn.

The pole-sitter had to settle with second as the race was finished early under Safety Car conditions after Nick Smith’s car caught on fire on Lap 8.

Caruso posted the fastest time of the National Sports Sedan Series Qualifying earlier with a time of 1:18.779s.

He was unchallenged in the session with his time nearly a second ahead of the field.

A Red Flag was brought out after Ricciardello, who topped the first practice of the weekend, went off on the inside of the circuit before Turn 10.

The Western Australian driver tried re-joining the track after going off at the sweeper but could not.

Due to this, the session was ended with two minutes to go, leaving Caruso with pole position for Race 1.

Although causing the Red Flag, Ricciardello’s time of 1:19.494s was enough to keep him on the front row behind Caruso.

The rolling start for Race 1 saw a tussle between the front two, but Ricciardello pushed his way into the lead at Turn 1.

He made an instant gap to the current Series leader Caruso and Josh Haynes had a better start than Steven Tamasi, jumping the Victorian driver into third.

Cameron in the #111 Commodore had a problem with his right rear tyre on Lap 4 and dropped to the bottom of the pack. He was able to drive back to the pits but retired from the race.

Whilst mounting his challenge to the leader of Race 1, Caruso collected the race lap record in Winton with a 1:19.428s.

On Lap 8, the Safety Car was brought out due to New South Wales driver Smith who stopped on track with fire and smoke billowing out of his Ramsay Surveyors Mazda RX7.

Smith was able to exit the car and extinguish the flames himself before marshals joined to help. The race was not resumed and finished under the Safety Car.

This left Ricciardello to take the win as Caruso was not able to challenge for the lead.

Josh Haynes took third and Tamasi was fourth. Ashley Jarvis rounded out the top five.

Race 2 of the National Sports Sedan Series starts tomorrow at 08:45 local time/AEST.