Rick Kelly fastest in opening Darwin practice

Nissan Motorsport’s Rick Kelly topped the opening practice session of the CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown at Hidden Valley Raceway.

Kelly vaulted from 23rd position to the top of the times with a 1:06.51s effort following a run on fresh set of tyres in the final moments of the 45 minute session.

The #15 Nissan, which was driven by co-driver David Wall early in the running, was among a group of drivers to improve when practice resumed after being halted by an incident involving Jason Bright.

Kelly headed the Triple Eight trio of Craig Lowndes, Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup.

“We ran a new set of tyres and I don’t think anyone else did, so there’s definitely a lot of time in the car still,” said Kelly.

“I’ve only done a couple of runs here today so more to come, but we had a little bit of a throttle drama.

“At that critical point where you’re just trying to crack initial throttle, it’s a bit sticky then it breaks through very aggressively so it wasn’t the cleanest of laps, so a nice easy thing to fix up and we’ll go from there.

“Still similar sorts of trends (with tyres) with the overall set-up but the guys have actually done a strong amount of work over the last four weeks so there’s a lot of new stuff on the car we’re trying and it seems to have really paid off.

“The group’s working very well as four cars trying different stuff and I think we’ll hopefully start to see some of that progress us further forward.”

Chaz Mostert was the top Prodrive runner in fifth position ahead of Preston Hire Racing’s Lee Holdsworth, who returns to the scene of his nasty crash last year.

It proved to be session of highs and lows for Prodrive as Bright brought the session to a halt when he found the tyre wall at Turn 10-11 in his Prodrive Falcon.

Bright, running a newly repaired chassis this weekend, lost the rear of his car resulting in the veteran rear-ending the tyre wall at speed.

Luckily he was able to bring the car back to the pits allowing the team to begin repairs.

“I ended up a little bit hot in there and ended up on the marbles and ran out of road,” said Bright, who ended the session in 18th spot.

“It didn’t feel like it hit that hard so hopefully it is all cosmetic.”

Prior to the stoppage, DJR Team Penske’s Fabian Coulthard had topped the times but was unable to improve in the final moments, leaving the championship leader in seventh.

The top 10 was completed by Garry Rogers Motorsport’s Garth Tander, David Reynolds (Erebus Motorsport) and Cameron Waters (Prodrive).

Tekno Autosports’ Will Davison just missed out on the top 10 ahead of Mark Winterbottom, while DJRTP’s Scott McLaughlin could only manage 14th in his Falcon.

Cameron McConville impressed on his return to Supercars, running as high as eighth, before ending the hit out 19th in the #3 Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Commodore.

“I was obviously on a pretty good tyre,” said McConville.

“I’m just dialling into the car trying to give the team some feedback.

“They haven’t had the chance to do too many wholesale changes until now so I just said let’s try whatever you want to try to give a bit of direction.

“It’s session one and I’m under no illusions as to where we’re going to be but it’s good to be up there for the guys.”

Macauley Jones was the top wildcard runner in 22nd ahead of Tim Blanchard, the two Mobil 1 HSV Racing Commodores of James Courtney and Scott Pye, and fellow wildcard runner Jack Le Brocq.

The Supercars field will return for a second 45 minute practice session from 1500 local time.

Result: Virgin Australia Supercars Championship CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown Practice 1