Supercars P1 sees plenty of early carnage
A wild opening Supercars session saw plenty of lively back-ends on the quick Albert Park track, with Team 18’s Winterbottom going top late.
Two major incidents occurred on the lively track, with SVG and Slade going hard into the turn 8 and turn 5 fencing, with Slade appearing the worst damaged.
The first practice session of a jam packed Supercars day at Albert Park got underway, with teams experiencing the Gen3 cars for the first time on the Super Soft Dunlop tyre, but most teams ran the hards first up.
Feeney went top early in the half hour session, with van Gisbergen and De Pasquale in behind.
De Pasquale then set the growing benchmark of 1:51.575, which was quickly topped by Randle.
Slade found trouble at Turn 5 with damage to the back left rear. Image: EDGE Photographics
As most cars pitted, Slade went hard into the fence at the top of the circuit (Turn 5) whilst in P2, going extremely hard into the wall with his back rear, giving PremiAir a big challenge with the quick session turnarounds.
The session was red flagged with 19 minutes to run, and SVG having gone top.
The word so far was that the driver’s were under-driving to start with on the super quick track, and as evident with Slade, were very lively in the back end.
The green light saw 13 and half minutes left with 1:50.174 still holding up, until Winterbottom nudged under it to break the 50 mark, before SVG then went into the wall to bring out another red.
It was a big spin by the #97, going on a wild ride, losing his tail through turn 8, picking up damage to the left rear and slightly at the front.
Courtney meanwhile had also spun out but avoided the wall, with the Triple Eight Red Bull incident putting an end to an eventful but short first session.
Practice 1 results
- Winterbottom. 1:49.967
- De Pasquale. +0.151
- Van Gisbergen. +0.207
- Waters. +0.227
- Reynolds +0.232
2023 Australian Grand Prix Supercars schedule
Thursday, March 30
11.25-11.55 Practice 1 – 1: Winterbottom 1:49.967 2: De Pasquale +0.151 2: SVG +0.207
13.15-13.45 Practice 2
14.45-15.00 Qualifying (Race 3)
15.10-15.25 Qualifying (Race 4)
17.45 Race 3 (19 laps)
Friday, March 31
15.55 Race 4 (15 laps)
Saturday, April 1
9.30-9.45 Qualifying (Race 5)
9.55-10.10 Qualifying (Race 6)
17.30 Race 5 (13 laps)
Sunday, April 2
10.25 Race 6 (13 laps)
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