Thursday practice ends with Cam Waters on top again

Cam Waters has ended his Thursday at Mount Panorama just as he started it, posting the fastest time of the hour-long practice session to put the Tickford Racing #6 car at the top of the timesheets in similar fashion to how he topped opening practice.

The former Sandown 500 winner and most recent Supercars race winner was on the pace early on in practice and was dialled in to the car as qualifying simulations started to flow towards the end of practice three, reflecting the conditions which are likely to be around tomorrow afternoon.

Continuing on with the theme of the day, Waters was quick in the first flying laps, heading up the field early on which showed the potential speed of his Tickford Racing Mustang in shootout form with not much time to warm up.

As usual, it didn’t take long for Scott McLaughlin to join the party and get to the top of the timesheets in the DJR Team Penske #17 with just 15 minutes having been run, just under half a second splitting the top ten drivers with 45 minutes still to go.

Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup was the first driver to dip into the 2:05’s with a 2:05.7202 though the seven-time series champion was soon beaten by Andre Heimgartner, the Kiwi sticking his Kelly Racing car to the top spot less than a tenth ahead of Whincup.

With the clock winding down and qualifying laps starting to roll in, the DJR Team Penske combo of McLaughlin and Fabian Coulthard headed the field but soon felt the pressure from the Waters, the Tickford driver clocking the fastest time of the day so far with a 2:04.8029, nearly half a second up on his fellow Mustang rivals.

Having worked up the order throughout the day, Shane van Gisbergen got the #97 car to the top finally, only to be beaten by fellow Kiwi Heimgartner while further back on track, Waters was setting fastest sectors to finally punch in a 2:04.1696 and end the session three-tenths clear of McLaughlin who snuck into second ahead of van Gisbergen.

Heimgartner’s time was good enough for the Kelly Racing car to end up fourth with 2011 Bathurst winner Nick Percat jumping up to fifth for Brad Jones Racing ahead of Coulthard in sixth. Tickford’s Lee Holdsworth and James Courtney secured seventh and ninth, splitting the Erebus Motorsport machine of Anton de Pasquale in eighth while Bryce Fullwood in the Walkinshaw Andretti United #2 was the last driver in the ten.

Further back, despite being on track to set a quick lap in the final minutes, Whincup was unable to improve and had to finish the session back in 16th place, well behind team-mate van Gisbergen in third.

Practice four for co-drivers only goes green at 0945 Bathurst time tomorrow with practice five at 1240 being the final outing before qualifying, the first session starting at 1605 which will determine the grid bar the first ten runners who get a second chance in the Top Ten Shootout on Saturday.