Waters edges Davison to Gold Coast Supercars practice honours

Cameron Waters has beaten Will Davison to the fastest lap of Repco Supercars Championship Practice 2 at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 by a fine margin.

Davison upstaged Shane van Gisbergen to claim Practice 1 honours by 0.0188s but was pipped by an even smaller figure in the latter session of the day, with Waters’ 1:10.7215s in Tickford Racing’s #6 Monster Energy Mustang beating his personal-best time by 1:10.7215s.

Van Gisbergen was just 0.0019s slower again in Practice 2, with Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert rounding out a top four covered by just 0.0905s.

Once again, the weather was hot and sunny, and the pace was up straight away with the Practice 1 benchmark of 1:11.2213s knocked off on just the second flying laps, although there was an unusual factor at play.

Waters was fastest on a 1:11.0445s when a red flag was called in the sixth minute in response to Will Brown stopping on-track in the #9 Boost Mobile ZB Commodore with an alternator issue.

It would be a longer red flag period than otherwise would be the case when Race Control recognised that the tyre bundles at the Beach Chicane, which were moved back from the apex for the earlier Carrera Cup session, had not been restored to their original position.

The unusual positioning had been noted just prior by van Gisbergen (#97 Red Bull Ampol ZB Commodore), who had an innocuous off at the end of the beach section, although whether that was a function of the different line through the chicane just preceding was not clear.

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Once the issue was fixed and the session resumed, the tighter, standard line proved little problem for Waters, who soon improved to a 1:10.8925s, before David Reynolds (#26 Penrite Mustang) clocked a 1:10.9435s.

Waters very nearly improved again when he set a 1:10.9003s with just under 10 minutes remaining, before van Gisbergen usurped him with a 1:10.7416s on his own penultimate run.

He would not find any more pace but Davison would, wheeling the #17 Shell V-Power Mustang to a 1:10.7397s before Waters clocked a 1:10.7215s just before the chequers in a battle-scarred #6 Mustang.

Mostert claimed fourth with a 1:10.8120s in a #25 Mobil 1 Optus ZB Commodore which he too left some scrapes on, having brushed the tyre wall exiting Turn 13 midway through.

Reynolds ended up fifth on a 1:10.9334s, from Andre Heimgartner (#8 R&J Batteries ZB Commodore), Anton De Pasquale (#11 Shell V-Power Mustang), Nick Percat (#2 Mobil 1 NTI ZB Commodore), Brown on a 1:11.2302s once he had been sent back out, and Mark Winterbottom (#18 Irwin Tools ZB Commodore) in 10th.

Broc Feeney finished 19th on a 1:11.5378s in the #88 Red Bull Ampol ZB Commodore.

Qualifying for Race 31 of the season takes place tomorrow from 11:25 local time/12:25 AEDT, with a Top 10 Shootout to follow later in the day.

Results: Practice 2