Bathurst 1000: Hinchcliffe hits the wall as practice continues

Hinchcliffe backed the Walkinshaw Andretti United Holden into the wall at The Cutting with five minutes to go, forcing the wildcard entry out of the remainder of the session.

It was the second mishap for the NAPA-backed car, after Alex Rossi beached himself at Hell Corner yesterday.

The damage from the Hinchcliffe shunt appears to be mostly cosmetic, the car likely to return for the day's second half-hour practice session at 12:10pm.

"I got into the wall a little bit in The Cutting just trying to find the limit," explained Hinchcliffe.

"I’m actually getting a lot more comfortable in the car, Alex and I both. Every night you get to sleep on it, let it sit and marinate overnight. You come back and feel a lot more at home and comfortable in the car.

"[I'm] just starting to push in places we hadn’t felt comfortable pushing before this point and it obviously just got away from me there and tagged the wall.

"I hate to lose the track time for both of us, but I think it’s relatively cosmetic stuff and we’ll get it fixed up for this afternoon."

There were no Hollywood lap times from the opening hit-out, crews mostly focussed on race runs and driver change practice.

Will and Alex Davison led the way with a 2m04.754s, edging Fabian Coulthard/Tony D'Alberto by 0.005s.

Tim Slade was third quickest after running a set of green tyres, followed by Brad Jones Racing teammate Nick Percat and Alex Premat in the #17 Penske Ford.

There were more issues for the #6 Tickford Mustang, a stuck throttle forcing a lengthy stint in the pits in the first third of the session.

That follows a sensor drama in qualifying yesterday that almost cost Cam Waters a shot at the Top 10 Shootout.

He and Michael Caruso finished today's session in 17th after finally getting on track.

Cla	#	Driver		Car	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	23	Will Davison Alex Davison		Ford Mustang GT	12	2'04.7544			179.286
2	12	Fabian Coulthard Tony D'Alberto		Ford Mustang GT	11	2'04.7595	0.0051	0.0051	179.279
3	14	Tim Slade		Holden Commodore ZB	11	2'04.9764	0.2220	0.2169	178.968
4	8	Nick Percat Tim Blanchard		Holden Commodore ZB	7	2'05.2599	0.5055	0.2835	178.563
5	17	Scott McLaughlin Alexandre Prémat		Ford Mustang GT	13	2'05.2806	0.5262	0.0207	178.533
6	97	Shane van Gisbergen Garth Tander		Holden Commodore ZB	12	2'05.3015	0.5471	0.0209	178.503
7	55	Chaz Mostert James Moffat		Ford Mustang GT	12	2'05.3061	0.5517	0.0046	178.497
8	35	Todd Hazelwood Jack Smith		Holden Commodore ZB	11	2'05.4128	0.6584	0.1067	178.345
9	9	David Reynolds Luke Youlden		Holden Commodore ZB	12	2'05.5985	0.8441	0.1857	178.081
10	18	Mark Winterbottom Steven Richards		Holden Commodore ZB	11	2'05.8142	1.0598	0.2157	177.776
11	5	Lee Holdsworth Thomas Randle		Ford Mustang GT	12	2'05.8388	1.0844	0.0246	177.741
12	99	Anton De Pasquale Will Brown		Holden Commodore ZB	13	2'05.9672	1.2128	0.1284	177.560
13	3	Garry Jacobson Dean Fiore		Nissan Altima	11	2'06.0172	1.2628	0.050	177.490
14	22	James Courtney Jack Perkins		Holden Commodore ZB	13	2'06.0758	1.3214	0.0586	177.407
15	7	Andre Heimgartner Bryce Fullwood		Nissan Altima	11	2'06.0816	1.3272	0.0058	177.399
16	21	Macauley Jones Dean Canto		Holden Commodore ZB	11	2'06.1618	1.4074	0.0802	177.286
17	6	Cameron Waters Michael Caruso		Ford Mustang GT	10	2'06.1943	1.4399	0.0325	177.240
18	19	Jack Le Brocq Jonathon Webb		Holden Commodore ZB	11	2'06.2664	1.5120	0.0721	177.139
19	15	Rick Kelly Dale Wood		Nissan Altima	12	2'06.3265	1.5721	0.0601	177.055
20	888	Jamie Whincup Craig Lowndes		Holden Commodore ZB	11	2'06.3437	1.5893	0.0172	177.031
21	56	Brodie Kostecki Jake Kostecki		Holden Commodore ZB	12	2'06.4342	1.6798	0.0905	176.904
22	2	Scott Pye Warren Luff		Holden Commodore ZB	12	2'06.4396	1.6852	0.0054	176.897
23	33	Richie Stanaway Chris Pither		Holden Commodore ZB	12	2'07.1617	2.4073	0.7221	175.892
24	78	Simona de Silvestro Alex Rullo		Nissan Altima	12	2'07.2711	2.5167	0.1094	175.741
25	34	James Golding Richard Muscat		Holden Commodore ZB	12	2'07.3152	2.5608	0.0441	175.680
26	27	Alexander Rossi James Hinchcliffe		Holden Commodore ZB	7	2'08.0356	3.2812	0.7204	174.692