The final Practice session of the Sucrogen Townsville 400 has been run with the same top three drivers as P3 yesterday.
Fujitsu GRM’s Scott McLaughlin led James Courtney and David Reynolds home, with record-setter Russell Ingall and Craig Lowndes rounding out the top five.
McLaughlin’s fastest time was a 1min12.8641, just 0.1287sec faster than the Holden Racing Team Commodore.
It was an action packed session as cars toured off-track – and some into tyre barriers – with a red flag stopping the session with five minutes to go.
At turn five, Wilson Security pilot David Wall had the car in the tyres, with reasonable damage to the front. However, Wall was fine, impact wasn’t hard and he was hopeful the car would be out for ARMOR ALL Qualifying, even if they joined the session late. He had run inside the top 10 during the session, as high as sixth earlier on.
This comes after extensive repairs on the #21 Commodore after being involved in the large pile-up at the last event in Darwin.
Wall believed something had broken in the front suspension in practice. “More than likely a shock – when I arrived at the left hander it wouldn’t turn and it’s one of the fastest corners. It just went straight.
“I’m fine, just frustrated with that.
“It’s just a shame, it looks like we might miss it all. When it got onto the grass it just went into the tyres.
“I hope there’s a chance to fix it for qualifying even if we are a bit late. We’ll see how it goes.”
A number of teams are having issues with shock absorbers (dampers).
“It’s obviously got something to do with the circuit – the kerbs are different here compared to other places that we go,” Wall said. “Obviously with the new cars it’s different and people are finding these problems as they go along. We’re obviously not the only team.”
Literally in the last seconds of the session Todd Kelly had his Jack Daniel’s Commodore in the tyres.
Click here for full session results.
Qualifying starts at 11.45am EST and will be followed by a Top 10 Shootout prior to the afternoon’s 200km, 70 lap race, the 20th in the Championship.
