De Pasquale lights up opening Sydney 500 practice
By Thomas Miles
Date posted: 21 February 2025
Anton De Pasquale has started life at Team 18 perfectly by nailing the opening and only Supercars practice session of the Sydney 500.
De Pasquale’s first official flying lap at the team was enough to also top Practice 1 at Sydney Motorsport Park.
His 1:30.0226 was enough to lead the entire 30 minute practice and enjoy a comfortable 0.4742s margin over Team 18 teammate David Reynolds.
To complete a top four few would have predicted behind the Team 18 Camaros were BRT teammates James Courtney and Aaron Love.
Despite being 17th, Cameron Waters looked ominous positing purple first and second sectors, only to suffer a kerb strike at the final turn.
Being the only practice of the weekend, teams took the chance to learn the new Soft tyre rather than going all out on glory runs, while the arrival of sunshine around the 10 minute mark also changed conditions.
With lots to learn and not enough time, all 25 cars hit the track instantly, but it was De Pasquale who blasted out of the gates.
The new recruit instantly went faster than the test day benchmark and enjoyed a comfortable half a second margin over BRT Mustangs.
Courtney responded with a purple start to his next lap, only to suffer a kerb strike as little separated the rest of the top five.
Despite everyone venturing to the track, only Waters, Randle and Heimgartner went longer than 10 minutes with their first stint with the Tickford teammates going particularly deep.
Many teams made early changes before returning to the track, which was now hit by sunlight.
Whilst De Pasquale’s benchmark was unchallenged across the first 20 minutes, it was close behind as half a second split positions 2-21.
After conducting fact finding missions across the majority of the session, teams rolled out fresh tyres for the final three minutes.
Payne was one of the first to go on an all green run but only improved from 21st to 14th.
Sitting 16th, Waters was blazing, going purple in both the first two sectors, only to suffer a kerb strike in the final sequence of corners.
Meanwhile to provide further joy for Team 18, Reynolds made it a 1-2 to give Team 18 plenty of encouragement.
With practice already out of the way, things already get serious with qualifying to set the grid for the opening race of the year at 16.20 AEDT.
Image: Peter Norton
Supercars Sydney 500 Practice results
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