Shane van Gisbergen has topped the second practice session at Winton, but was unable to crack the lap record in cooler conditions.
The Red Bull racer’s best 1min19.3311 elevated him to the top of the totem pole ahead of Rick Kelly and Jamie Whincup in practice two, but did not eclipse the 1min19.2435 time set by Tim Slade earlier today.
As if the top time wasn’t cool enough, the quick Kiwi was spotted rocking sunglasses under his helmet as he slid around the circuit during the session.
His teammate Whincup had a harder run, suffering from a broken wishbone in the left rear of his Commodore.
The six-time champ said it was a setback, but his team was able to get him back out on track with 23 minutes remaining – and enough time to record a more than respectable time, 0.1571sec away from his teammate.
Whincup’s wasn’t the only issue during the session, with Fabian Coulthard in the garage for a time and Chaz Mostert retiring early with a misfire with just the 18th fastest time.
Coulthard also bounced back to record the fifth fastest time, behind Craig Lowndes.
2015 champ and last year’s Sunday race winner Mark Winterbottom finished eighth in the session.
There was a focus on turn eight, where cars were spraying up sand and dragging in on the track.
The surface is newly resurfaced and, as expected, has produced record times with Slade’s earlier lap the fastest in history around Winton in a V8 Supercar.
Click here for complete practice times.
A final practice session runs tomorrow morning at 11.45am local time, before qualifying and a 120km lap race.
