Darwin Supercars: Percat tops first practice

Tyres were there focus of the 40-minute session as teams and drivers got their first taste of the brand new super soft control tyre.

With question marks over the level of degradation, long runs were a focus for much of the field throughout the session.

That meant Mark Winterbottom's early 1m06.334s, set on just his second lap, was the benchmark until the qualifying sims started with a few minutes to go.

At that point the times started to tumble, Anton De Pasquale first to knock Winterbottom off top spot with a 1m06.290s.

Cam Waters and Scott Pye then went close, slotting into what was second and third respectively, before Percat knocked every down a spot with a 1m06.169s at the flag.

"Yeah it felt good," said Percat. "We had a very well-structured programme and we just stuck to it. We went through the changes we wanted and the end result was a pretty fast lap time.

"We made a change for our last run with new tyres and it actually really hooked up. Early days, but it was nice to have a drive on the super softs."

Winterbottom ended up fifth with that early time, followed by Chaz Mostert, David Reynolds and James Courtney.

Todd Hazelwood and Jack Le Brocq rounded out the Top 10, while series leader Shane van Gisbergen was just 11th after changing a splitter early and running off track several times during the session.

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Interval
1	8	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.169
2	11	Anton De Pasquale	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.290	0.120	0.120
3	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.305	0.136	0.015
4	20	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.329	0.159	0.023
5	18	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.334	0.165	0.005
6	25	Chaz Mostert	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.360	0.190	0.025
7	26	David Reynolds	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.437	0.268	0.077
8	44	James Courtney	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.561	0.391	0.123
9	14	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.575	0.405	0.014
10	5	Jack Le Brocq	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.616	0.446	0.040
11	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.634	0.465	0.018
12	9	Will Brown	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.669	0.500	0.035
13	17	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.724	0.554	0.054
14	88	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.749	0.580	0.025
15	99	Brodie Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.754	0.585	0.005
16	7	Andre Heimgartner	Ford Mustang GT	1'06.799	0.629	0.044
17	96	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.821	0.651	0.022
18	19	Fabian Coulthard	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.891	0.721	0.069
19	27	Kurt Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.003	0.833	0.112
20	34	Jake Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.102	0.932	0.099
21	4	Jack Smith	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.153	0.984	0.051
22	35	Zane Goddard	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.154	0.985	0.000
23	2	Bryce Fullwood	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.330	1.161	0.176
24	55	Thomas Randle	Ford Mustang GT	1'07.461	1.292	0.131
25	3	Tim Slade	Ford Mustang GT	1'07.511	1.341	0.049
26	22	Garry Jacobson	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.643	1.474	0.132
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