Pye puts Triple Eight on top in Sandown co-driver practice

The day’s second of three 30-minute practice sessions was for co-drivers only, giving the part-timers their first serious hit out of the endurance season.

Lee Holdsworth had Chaz Mostert’s Mustang at the top of the order for the bulk of the running, before a series of late improvers on newer tyres bumped him to 10th.

Dylan O’Keeffe (in Nick Percat’s MSR Camaro) eclipsed Holdsworth with two minutes remaining, before Declan Fraser (paired with Andre Heimgartner) further improved the benchmark.

Pye waited until the chequered flag was flying to put down the session’s ultimate lap; a 1:08.8398s proved 0.0780s quicker than Fraser.

O’Keeffe improved again late for third ahead of Cam Waters’ co-driver James Moffat and Cooper Murray, who shares the Triple Eight wildcard with Craig Lowndes.

The top-five were separated by less than a tenth of a second.

Jamie Whincup ensured three Triple Eight cars ended up in the top six from BJR pair Jordan Boys and Jaylyn Robotham, wildcard Brad Vaughan and Holdsworth.

Todd Hazelwood ended up 11th in Brodie Kostecki’s Erebus Camaro having, like Holdsworth, set his time early before settling into a race run.

Pye affirmed his team had run the opposite strategy – starting with a long run before bolting on better tyres at the end.

“We wanted to do a race run in that one at the start,” he said.

“We saw a lot of teams do quali sims in the first session which meant that, for our P2, my race run had already done all of session one.

“I was pretty pumped to get a taste of some good rubber at the end because at the end of that race run, pace was good but I was hanging for some good rubber at that point.

“It’s always nice to finish with a smile. They definitely make it a lot easier at this end of pitlane for you.”

An all-driver Practice 3 will complete the day’s Supercars running this afternoon.

Results: Penrite Oil Sandown 500, Practice 2 (co-drivers only)