David Reynolds breaks Bathurst lap record in FP3

Rod Nash Racing’s David Reynolds set the all-time fastest lap at the Mount Panorama circuit in FP3, setting a time of 2:06.3714 in his Ford Falcon FG, a tenth of a second ahead of Mark Winterbottom in the sister FPR Falcon.

Greg Murphy set the first target in the #22 Holden Commodore, but was soon outperformed by Winterbottom in the #5 Ford Performance Racing Falcon. The Ford drivers from then dominated the middle part of the session, with Reynolds, Winterbottom and Chaz Mostert at one point occupying the top tthree positions.

Mostert was fastest of all when the red flag came out with 20 minutes to go when Robert Dahlgren crashed out the #34 Volvo S60 at the Dipper. After a short stoppage as the damaged Volvo was recovered, the session resumed with Garth Tander going fastest of all on his first lap in the Holden Racing Team Commodore, before crashing out at the Dipper as well on his second lap bringing the red flags out again.

In the final ten minutes when the session resumed, the best times all came, with David Reynolds snatching the fastest time with a 2:06.3741 with Winterbottom second and Fabian Coulthard third in the Brad Jones Racing Holden, with all three drivers under the lap record set by Craig Lowndes four years ago.

“Today, it was a pretty normal day. Started out pretty scared with the whole idea of racing Supercars here,” said Reynolds. “I nearly binned it a few times, because of the new track surface the car balance has changed quite a bit, but we tuned it up and made a few changes, and then Deano (Canto) made a few tweaks in practice two and the car felt even better.”

Scott McLaughlin was the fastest Volvo driver in fourth, with James Moffat the fastest Nissan in ninth, while the best placed Erebus Mercedes driver was Will Davison in 16th.

FP4 takes place at 9:30 AEST on Friday 10th October, with FP5 at 13:10 and qualifying at 15:00.