THURSDAY SUPPORT WRAP FROM AGP

The Thursday action at the Australian Grand Prix consisted of four Qualifying sessions for the Supercars, Qualifying and Race One for the Carrera Cup and two Qualifying sessions and Race One for the Australian GT Championship.

Australian GT started off the days proceedings as Audi dominated the ‘Pro’ driver Qualifying session as factory ace Kelvin van der Linde and Ash Walsh locked out the front row.

In the ‘Am’ Qualifying session Max Twigg in his Mercedes-AMG GT GT3 and Roger Lago in the Lamborghini R-Ex took the front row placings for tomorrow’s second race.

Race One saw Walsh in his Audi R8 LMS GT3 top van der Linde as David Russell completed the podium. A couple of minor offs from Wayne Mack in the Ferrari and Michael O’Donnell in an older Porsche 997 Cup Car were stipulated by a big accident for Ash Samadi approaching Turn One and is gone for the weekend. Luckily the accident came at the end of the race.

Australian GT are on track tomorrow for Race Two at 10:45.

Carrera Cup Qualifying was headed by Sonic pair Nick McBride and Andre Heimgartner, which set up a tight battle between the pair and Zagame Motorsport team leader Cameron McConville. The trio quickly broke away from the field and showed their class as the battled during the whole 10-lap encounter.

Behind the lead trio, Jaxon Evans locked a brake at Turn Nine and couldn’t catch up to the battle for fourth between Dylan O’Keeffe, Michael Almond, Alex Davison and David Wall. Meanwhile in Challenge Class, Marc Cini gifted Stephen Grove victory after making a mistake at Turn One and ending in the gravel.

McBride took victory ahead of Heimgartner and McConville.

Porsche Carrera Cup has its second race at 2:55 pm.

Fabian Coulthard showed a clean pair of heels to qualify his DJR Team Penske Ford Falcon on Pole for three out of the four races. Jamie Whincup bettered the Ford driver in the final session. The results for Race One Qualifying was dominated by DJR Team Penske with Coulthard leading Scott McLaughlin and BJR’s Tim Slade.

Qualifying for Races Two and Three saw Coulthard continue his dominance as McLaughlin and Whincup will line up in second and third for both races.

Whincup set the pace in Qualifying session four to edge out Coulthard and Slade. The top three were covered by .0402s.

The Supercars first race is tomorrow at 1:50 pm.