Whincup quickest in practice for Darwin Triple Crown
Six-time Champion Jamie Whincup has signalled an end to his winless season with a strong opening day of the CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown.
Whincup sits second behind Fabian Coulthard in the Championship race despite not having a victory so far this year, a fact which has been eating at Supercars’ most dominating driver.
The Red Bull Holden Racing Team driver went with three tenths of a second of the fastest Supercar lap in history at the Hidden Valley Circuit and just outside of Craig Lowndes’ practice record.
The rivalry with Shell V-Power Racing’s Scott McLaughlin, who was just three hundredths of a second behind Whincup, continued in the Darwin heat. And some predict it will intensify with times to go under 2m:6s for the first time in history tomorrow.
"We're obviously changing it up, we can't just sit on our hands and cruise around,” Whincup said.
“The car's better, me made improvements after the test day. Hopefully that continues for the rest of the weekend but there's always plenty of time for everyone.
“(But) if we can find time I'm sure everyone can. We got two good productive sessions in, learned a lot about the car. We're in good shape, touch wood, for the weekend.”
McLaughlin said he was confident of even more speed tomorrow after he claimed his fastest time included a mistake which cost his end result.
"I want to be fast, but at the end of the day, the car is nice,” he said.
“I just overdrove it trying to find the limit in areas where we overstepped the mark. It's what practice is all about. The car has been fantastic all day in race trim and qualifying trim. I'm just looking forward to tomorrow."
“It will be interesting what conditions get thrown at us tomorrow; the UV and whatever. But I think we're looking okay, all of us.”
Lowndes was third fastest at one of his favourite circuit with Holden Special Vehicle’s Scott Pye a welcome fourth and Erebus Motorsport’s David Reynolds fourth. Coulthard ended up thirteenth.
Rick Kelly topped the opening practice session this morning in his Sengled Altima came in a five-minute shootout at the end of the session following a by from Jason Bright.
Coulthard had held the top spot when the red flags flew with a 1:06.77s effort, but dropped to seventh as others improved after the restart.
Click here for full results from today’s practice.
Qualifying will begin at 2:20pm AEST tomorrow afternoon ahead of the opening 120km race at 4:45pm AEST (4:15pm local time). Qualifying, a Top Ten Shootout and a 200km race will be held on Sunday.
Every practice, qualifying and race, as well as support categories, from the CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown will be broadcast live, ad-break free on Fox Sports 506 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Highlights Saturday night at 8:30pm AEST on ONE and 11:30pm AEST on TEN and Sunday at 4:00pm AEST on TEN and 8:30pm AEST on ONE. For the full TV Schedule of the Darwin Triple Crown, head to supercars.com/tv-schedule.
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