Cooper Murray has continued Erebus Motorsport’s run at the top by setting the fastest time in Friday’s opening practice session at Bathurst, which was interrupted by two heavy hits into the concrete.
Murray replicated co-driver Lochie Dalton’s performance in Thursday’s final session by topping the timesheets to start off Qualifying day at Bathurst.
The session was shortened with five-minutes to go leaving Murray’s 2m 04.712s the benchmark 0.118s clear of the Matt Stone Racing Camaro of Jack Le Brocq and Harri Jones.
Chaz Mostert and Fabian Coulthard were on the pace in the Mobil 1 Optus Racing Toyota GR Supra to round out the top three.
Next up was the James Golding/Richie Stanaway Blanchard Racing Team Mustang ahead of Erebus Motorsport’s Jobe Stewart, the Monster Castrol Racing entry of Cam Waters/Mark Winterbottom and Aaron Cameron/Zak Best in the LIQUI MOLY Blahst Racing Ford bounced back from a disappointing Thursday to finish inside the top 10.
Rounding out the lead runners were the Thomas Randle/Reuben Goodall Monster Castrol Racing Mustang, Zach Bates/Aaron Seton Matt Stone Racing Camaro and the Andre Heimgartner/Bryce Fullwood R&J Batteries Racing Toyota.
The Ryan Wood/Fabian Coulthard Toyota and Rylan Gray/Tony D’Alberto Ford will not take to the track for the rest of the day after separate incidents resulted in both hitting the unforgiving concrete.
Wood on his first green tyre run clipped the wall on the inside of Forrest’s Elbow sending the Mobil 1 Truck Assist Racing Supra hard into the outside wall, with the team ruling the entry out for Qualifying this afternoon.
During the closing stages of the session, D’Alberto was completing a long run when the Shell V-Power Racing Team Mustang got loose in The Dipper and met the outside concrete wall and this has also been ruled out for this afternoon’s Qualifying session.
The Repco Supercars Championship return to the track for the fourth practice session at Bathurst at 1:15pm AEDT.