Darwin Supercars: McLaughlin beats Reynolds in final practice

Anton De Pasquale was fastest out of the blocks, the Erebus driver going quickest on his third lap with a 1m06.566s.

It didn't take long for McLaughlin to improve that benchmark, though, the points leader going four-tenths clear of the field with a 1m06.118s on the eight minute mark.

There were few meaningful improvements through the middle part of the 30-minute hit-out as crews worked on race set-ups.

It wasn't until there was 10 minutes to go that anyway made an in-roads on McLaughlin's gap, Reynolds halving the advantage to two-tenths.

McLaughlin re-emerged with four minutes to go on a fresh, but not green set of rubber, going purple in Sector 2 but ultimately falling short of his earlier benchmark.

Not that it mattered, none of the late improvements good enough to trouble either McLaughlin or Reynolds.

“It was a free session because It doesn’t really mean anything,” said Reynolds.

“Yesterday Practice 2 meant something, it was the first part of qualifying, so we couldn’t go really stupid with our set-up and try some out-there stuff.

“That was the session to do it then.

“I think the car was better yesterday, I don’t know whether that was the tyres we had yesterday that were a bit better, but we’ve got to work it out.”

Jamie Whincup was best of the late improvers, the Red Bull Holden driver making up 11 spot on his final run as he moved into third, just three-hundredths off Reynolds.

That time dropped De Pasquale, who had improved moments earlier, down to fourth, ahead of Cam Waters and Andre Heimgartner.

Scott Pye and Tim Slade were next, with Shane van Gisbergen and Jack Le Brocq rounding out the Top 10.

Fabian Coulthard, meanwhile, was just 15th quickest, six-tenths down on teammate McLaughlin.

“I’m actually not too stressed. We tried a couple of things,” he said.

“We had a good run yesterday in P2. I think we’ll put some tyres on it and be fine.”

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	17	Scott McLaughlin	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.1184
2	9	David Reynolds	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.3294	0.2110
3	88	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.3640	0.2456
4	99	Anton De Pasquale	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.4725	0.3541
5	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.4931	0.3747
6	7	Andre Heimgartner	Nissan Altima	1'06.5523	0.4339
7	2	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.5900	0.4716
8	14	Tim Slade	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.5979	0.4795
9	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.6421	0.5237
10	19	Jack Le Brocq	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.6498	0.5314
11	55	Chaz Mostert	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.6633	0.5449
12	18	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.7120	0.5936
13	23	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.7134	0.5950
14	78	Simona de Silvestro	Nissan Altima	1'06.7143	0.5959
15	12	Fabian Coulthard	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.7285	0.6101
16	15	Rick Kelly	Nissan Altima	1'06.7579	0.6395
17	22	James Courtney	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.8064	0.6880
18	5	Lee Holdsworth	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.8151	0.6967
19	8	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.0034	0.8850
20	3	Garry Jacobson	Nissan Altima	1'07.0368	0.9184
21	34	James Golding	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.0533	0.9349
22	33	Chris Pither	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.0562	0.9378
23	21	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.0739	0.9555
24	4	Jack Smith	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.3136	1.1952
25	35	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.3347	1.2163