Townsville Supercars: Holdsworth tops second practice

After a wet opening hit-out this morning, crews were treated to dry conditions for the second 30-minute practice.

Times were immediately 10s quicker than the opening season, Fabian Coulthard leading the way early with a 1m13.171s.

On the 12-minute mark Coulthard was bumped off top spot by fellow Mustang driver Will Davison, who moved five-hundredths clear 1m13.117s.

With 10 minutes to go Scott McLaughlin made his first appearance at the top of the times, going quickest with a 1m12.937s.

He was promptly replaced by Holdsworth (1m12.765s), before McLaughlin struck back with a minute to go with a 1m12.697s.

It was Holdsworth that had the last laugh, however, the Tickford driver grabbing top spot with a 1m12.677s at the flag.

“I love this track, I’ve always enjoyed it around here,” said Holdsworth.

“The Bottle-O car is really hooked up. We obviously didn’t get much of a chance to tune it today, but we’ve rolled out of the box with a pretty quick beast. 

“Let’s hope we’re in the same position tomorrow after qualifying.”

Triple Eight's Shane van Gisbergen popped up in second on his final run, just 0.01s behind Holdsworth, while McLaughlin was shuffled back to third.

David Reynolds was fourth after sitting out Practice 1 this morning, followed by P1 pacesetter Cam Waters and Anton De Pasquale.

Mark Winterbottom was seventh fastest, with Coulthard, Scott Pye and Tim Slade rounding out the Top 10.

Chaz Mostert was just 14th quickest, his Tickford Mustang struggling with an engine problem for much of the session.

"It was a waste of a day for us," he said.

"We had some issues with the car which really hampered our running.

"We couldn’t do the test plan that we wanted to. In the end we changed a bunch of things and something fixed it.

"The car was running okay at the end there, but lost track time really hurts us this weekend."

Townsville specialist Jamie Whincup, meanwhile, was just 16th, missing out on starting a green tyre run at the end.

“I would have missed the finish line by half a second I reckon, but that’s the way it goes,” said the seven-time champ.

“But overall we had a good session. We tried some radical things to try and improve the car speed.

“I don’t know if they’re better or not, we’re going to have to look at the data a little bit more."

Second practice results:

Cla	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Lee Holdsworth	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.6772
2	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.6904	0.0132
3	Scott McLaughlin	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.6974	0.0202
4	David Reynolds	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.7545	0.0773
5	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT	1'12.8590	0.1818
6	Anton De Pasquale	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.8967	0.2195
7	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB	1'12.9118	0.2346
8	Fabian Coulthard	Ford Mustang GT	1'13.0246	0.3474
9	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.0300	0.3528
10	Tim Slade	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.0537	0.3765
11	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	1'13.1170	0.4398
12	James Courtney	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.1853	0.5081
13	Rick Kelly	Nissan Altima	1'13.1855	0.5083
14	Chaz Mostert	Ford Mustang GT	1'13.2353	0.5581
15	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.2418	0.5646
16	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.2856	0.6084
17	Andre Heimgartner	Nissan Altima	1'13.3514	0.6742
18	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.4554	0.7782
19	Jack Le Brocq	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.4659	0.7887
20	Garry Jacobson	Nissan Altima	1'13.8821	1.2049
21	Michael Caruso	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.8963	1.2191
22	James Golding	Holden Commodore ZB	1'13.9189	1.2417
23	Simona de Silvestro	Nissan Altima	1'13.9365	1.2593
24	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB	1'14.0927	1.4155
View full results