Championship leader Brodie Kostecki made his latest statement by finishing the opening session of the Tasmania SuperSprint on top.
Although Cameron Waters led the majority of the opening practice session, Kostecki took P1 during the late qualifying simulation runs at the death.
A 51.0147 was enough for the #99 Erebus Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to beat James Courtney by 0.148s.
Kostecki was the only Camaro in the top five with Todd Hazelwood rising up 18 places to soar into third ahead of Will Davison and Waters.
The rest of the top 10 was filled by GM products with Jack Smith the outlier, showing good pace on fresh tyres in his #4 BJR machine to sit ninth ahead of Broc Feeney.
In Gen3’s first on-track session at Symmons Plains, times were around seven tenths slower than the ultimate pace set by the Gen2 cars in the corresponding session last year.
The Tasmania SuperSprint began in sunny, but albeit cold conditions with the thermostat only touching four degrees when cars first hit the track.
As a herd of sheep watched on in the background, Kostecki set the first benchmark of a 56.1008, but with cold tyres on a cold track this was never going to last.
The Coke Camaros were then knocked off by a trio of Mustangs driven by Waters, Will Davison and James Courtney.
Waters claimed P1 with a 51.2577, which stood for 24 minutes until happy hour.
The session ran trouble free until the halfway mark when Kostecki made an uncharacteristic mistake at the hairpin.
The championship leader went fastest in the first sector, but in doing so speared off at Turn 4, but pulled his Camaro up before the gravel.
The session continued uninterrupted as Macauley Jones also went off at the final corner and BJR teammate Andre Heimgartner followed the Coke Camaro into the hairpin runoff.
Eight minutes later Scott Pye went deeper than Kostecki, just catching the edge of the gravel trap.
Feeney had to dive into the garage due to a big chunk of rubber catching alight underneath the car, but returned to the track.
After a quiet spell, many teams bolted on a fresh set of tyres for a quick burst of quali runs inside the final three minutes.
Kostecki knocked Waters off with a 51.0147 as Courtney and Davison also went ahead of the Monster Mustang.
Hazelwood moved up 18 positions to sneak into third as less than two tenths separated the top four.
Another practice session is on offer before qualifying later today.
2023 Tasmania SuperSprint Practice 1 results
1 Brodie Kostecki 51.0147
2 James Courtney +0.1485
3 Todd Hazelwood +0.179
4 Will Davison +0.192
5 Cam Waters +0.243
6 Will Brown +0.249
7 Shane van Gisbergen +0.419
8 Mark Winterbottom +0.425
9 Jack Smith +0.453
10 Broc Feeney +0.466
11 Andre Heimgartner +0.477
12 Thomas Randle +0.522
13 David Reynolds +0.568
14 Anton De Pasquale +0.569
15 Jack Le Brocq +0.577
16 Nick Percat +0.609
17 Scott Pye +0.611
18 Chaz Mostert +0.681
19 Declan Fraser +0.683
20 Matthew Payne +0.704
21 Cameron Hill +0.724
22 Tim Slade +0.923
23 Bryce Fullwood +0.956
24 James Golding +1.027
25 Macauley Jones +1.422
2023 Tasmania SuperSprint schedule (all times AEST)
Saturday, May 20
Practice 1: 9.00-9.30
Practice 2: 10.55-11.25
Qualifying R10: 12.55-13.45
Race 10: 15.50-16.45
Sunday, May 21
Qualifying R11: 9.50-10.05
Qualifying R12: 10.15-10.30
Race 11: 13.05-14.00
Race 12: 15.50-14.45
Download the full Supercars Tasmania Round 4 Event Guide with track stats and facts and a full event schedule, plus our extensive driver profiles here
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