Red Bull Ampol Racing Team’s Garth Tander has sent a warning shot to his co-driver opposition by setting a remarkable benchmark at the end of Repco Supercars action on Thursday.
Tander logged a 2m 04.135s to lead the session for its majority as team principal Jamie Whincup in the sister Holden ZB Commodore was placed second for much of it until Boost Mobile Racing by Erebus’ David Russell split the pair, 0.102s behind the 2020 Bathurst winner’s time.
Brad Jones Racing’s Jordan Boys was fourth, with recently crowned IMSA GTD Pro champion Matt Campbell completing the top five in the Penrite Racing Ford Mustang.
Tickford Racing pair Zane Goddard and Zak Best followed from the Truck Assist Racing ZB Commodore of Aaron Seton, while James Moffat finished the session 10th for Monster Racing.
Minor incidents caused two red flags as Kurt Kostecki bunkered the TRADIE Racing Ford Mustang at The Chase, before Warren Luff did likewise later in the session in the NTI Mobil 1 Racing ZB Commodore he’ll share with Nick Percat.
Declan Fraser led the Wildcard entries in 21st right in front of Greg Murphy as Jay Robotham was 27th in the Caltex Young Stars entry.
Tyler Everingham proved impressive in his second Repco Bathurst 1000 campaign to be 12th in the Alspec ZB Commodore to be shared with regular driver Scott Pye, to rank just behind another young gun in Jayden Ojeda.
Smoke poured from the rear of Dylan O’Keeffe’s Subway PremiAir Racing ZB Commodore at the conclusion to the session presumed to be a power steering problem as he finished just ahead of teammate Cameron Hill in 19th.
The Repco Supercars Championship returns to action at 10:20am tomorrow for the third practice session of the weekend ahead of another before qualifying rounds out the day.