Ipswich Supercars: McLaughlin beats Slade in Practice 1

It was Nissan driver Rick Kelly that made a rapid start to the 45-minute session, breaking the 1m09s barrier on his first lap with a 1m09.826s to go fastest.

Kelly was joined in the nines by teammate Michael Caruso and Erebus driver David Reynolds as the first quarter of an hour unfolded, but it wasn’t until right on the 15-minute mark that he was knocked off top spot.

It was single-lap star Scott McLaughlin that relegated the Nissan to P2 with a 1m09.576s, before McLaughlin’s teammate Fabian Coulthard knocked Kelly down another spot with a 1m09.750s two minutes later.

Both Reynolds (1m09.729s) and Tim Slade (1m09.624s) did their best to chase down McLaughlin’s time over the next 30 minutes, but the Kiwi was able to hang on for top spot by 0.04s.

“The car was good straight away,” said McLaughlin. “Even on the warm-up tyres it was really good. It’s a good start, we’ll just try and build from there.”

Slade was second with that lap right at the end of the session, while Coulthard was shuffled back to third behind Reynolds.

Shane van Gisbergen was the best of the Triple Eight cars in fifth, while Kelly dropped back to sixth with that time set in the opening minutes of the session.

Chaz Mostert led the way for Prodrive Racing in seventh, ahead of Will Davison, Caruso, and Nick Percat.

Jamie Whincup was just 12th fastest, while Craig Lowndes could manage just 19th.

But the biggest surprise was Mark Winterbottom, who was shocked to wind up way down in 26th.

“The car is horrible, there is no hiding behind it,” said the Prodrive Racing driver.

“It don’t know why it’s so bad. Thankfully it’s Practice 1 and not Race 1. Two sets of tyres, and I’ve never had a car handle like that before.

“We’ll have a look and see what we can find. It’s what this year’s been about, you get a good car and a bad car in the matter of a couple of weeks.”

Jack Le Brocq was the best of the wildcard entries with the 15th best time, followed by Shae Davies (20th), co-driver practice session pacesetter Todd Hazelwood (22nd), and James Golding (25th).