Scott McLaughlin lowers lap record, Jamie Whincup crashes in Friday Bathurst practice
A busy few sessions before qualifying for the Bathurst 1000 has seen drivers feel emotions on both ends of the spectrum as Scott McLaughlin has reset the Supercars lap record at Mount Panorama while Jamie Whincup sustained damage in an unavoidable crash.
For McLaughlin, the DJR Team Penske driver was able to carry the speed which he showed yesterday to again go faster around the Mountain, putting in a new lap record of 2:03.4813 in the last practice session before qualifying.
Whincup was slowly building up to his fastest runs of the day when the Triple Eight driver crested the top of Skyline, coming up on Richie Stanaway who had just crashed coming down the Esses. With nowhere to go, Whincup had no choice other than to go around the back of the Garry Rogers Motorsport car, ending up in the outside wall.
The pace for practice five was hot right off the bat despite an early red flag after Simona De Silvestro ran off at Hell Corner, burying the Kelly Racing Nissan Altima in the gravel trap just before the ten minute mark.
Under cloudy skies with the threat of rain later in the day, a fast circuit led to quick lap times early on as Shane van Gisbergen put in a low-2:04 before 15 minutes had passed in the Triple Eight Holden Commodore, shortly being surpassed by the repaired Erebus Motorsport entry of David Reynolds who was knocking on the door of a 2:03 time.
Carrying on his form from yesterday, McLaughlin nearly went as fast as yesterday’s record breaking lap time halfway through the session, getting down to a 2:03.7957 on his qualifying simulation runs with Reynolds nearly four tenths of a second behind.
Further lowering the bar, McLaughlin again reset the lap record with a blistering lap of 2:04.4813, nearly three-tenths faster than his quickest time yesterday and close to three-quarters of a second faster than Reynolds in second.
While Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters moved to second, albeit half a second down on McLaughlin, Reynolds was on for a lap which could’ve challenged the DJR Team Penske Mustang until a red flag came out for a crash at the top of the mountain with 15 minutes to run.
As Stanaway and Whincup’s cars were retrieved, the session length was shortened, restarting with nine minutes to run while the grey clouds started to cover the circuit.
A late red flag was thrown with just under four minutes remaining, coming out after the #27 Walkinshaw Andretti United wild card of Alexander Rossi and James Hinchcliffe ended up in the Hell Corner gravel trap. Rossi was behind the wheel at the time and had previously recorded a lap of 2:06.3885.
Andre Heimgartner was able to move his Kelly Racing Altima into second at the end of the session, his lap of 2:03.99853 being the first time a Nissan has gone under a 2:04 around Bathurst. He was just ahead of Waters who led Reynolds and Coulthard to the top five.
The day’s earlier practice session for the nominated co-drivers saw Will Brown go fastest in the #99 Erebus machine, being shared with Anton de Pasquale. The 2019 TCR Australia champion was able to go quickest in the hour long session from Michael Caruso (#6, Tickford Racing), Garth Tander (#97, Triple Eight), Tony D’Alberto (#12, DJR Team Penske) and Thomas Randle (#5, Tickford Racing).
Qualifying will begin at 16:00 local time but will likely be affected by rain as dark clouds set in over Bathurst and the surrounding regions. While the top ten advance through to the shootout tomorrow, the rest will have their grid positions fixed for Sunday’s race.
