Ryan Wood has continued his hot form from Perth to lead the opening session at the betr Darwin Triple Crown as a grass fire occurred right at its conclusion.
Using a fresh set of Super Soft compound tyres available to rookie drivers, Wood’s fastest time was a 1m 07.059s to lead Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Broc Feeney by 0.264s from teammate Will Brown.
R&J Batteries Racing driver Andre Heimgartner was fourth after holding the top spot for some time, with the Supaglass Racing Chevrolet Camaro of Cameron Hill completing the top five.
Richie Stanaway of PremiAir Racing, the lead Shell V-Power Racing Team Mustang of Brodie Kostecki, Jack Le Brocq for Erebus Motorsport, title contender Cam Waters in the Monster Castrol Racing Ford and Pizza Hut Racing’s Macauley Jones rounded out the fastest 10.
There was plenty of action at the opening corner as Feeney, Nick Percat and Waters all ran wide.
Thomas Randle, Matt Payne, Chaz Mostert, Percat, Anton De Pasquale and David Reynolds were just outside the top runners as the first 23 entries were covered by less than a second.
Rylan Gray makes his debut this event as part of the Tickford Autosport Wildcard program and he finished the session 24th.
The second and final session of Friday’s Repco Supercars Championship action is due to begin at 2:55pm ACST or 3:25pm AEST.