Photo: Tickford Racing

Cam Waters on top in opening Bathurst practice

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Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters has put his #6 Ford Mustang to the top of the timesheets in the opening outing at the Mount Panorama Circuit for this weekend’s Bathurst 1000, notching up a time of 2:05.0233 to finish the hour long session on top.

A winner last time out at The Bend Motorsport Park, Waters carried on with that speed to put in his quickest lap on his last run of the session, going a quarter of a second faster than the Triple Eight car of Jamie Whincup in second place.

With the session getting underway with the sun covering the circuit, track temperatures in the mid-20’s celsius led to an easy warm-up, DJR Team Penske’s Fabian Coulthard and Scott McLaughlin notching up the quickest laps in the opening stanza before the champion elect dipped in to the 2:05’s, the first driver to do so.

As McLaughlin handed the #17 Mustang over to co-driver Tim Slade, the former Brad Jones Racing driver found himself pointing the wrong way after turning down on the Triple Eight #97 Holden Commodore of Shane van Gisbergen at Forrest Elbow, an awkward incident which fortunately didn’t bring out the red flag.

Quick lap times started to roll in during the final minutes of play with the Tickford Racing entry of Lee Holdsworth the first to topple McLaughlin’s time before Whincup and Waters swiftly jumped to the top of the order, finishing with a top three of Waters, Whincup and the #44 Tickford machine of James Courtney.

Tickford’s good form was evident as all four of their drivers squeezed into the top ten, Jack Le Brocq getting his #55 car into ninth place albeit nearly nine-tenths down on team-mate Waters.

Erebus Motorsport had a good showing with David Reynolds breaking into the top five in fourth place while team-mate Anton de Pasquale rounded out the top ten. Main game rookie Bryce Fullwood was able to put his Walkinshaw Andretti United car ahead of the Brad Jones Racing entry of sophomore Todd Hazelwood, both edging out McLaughlin who ended up eighth.

The co-driver only practice two session will start at 1245 local time before the day closes with an all-drivers practice at 1600.