The opening day of play at the Symmons Plains Raceway in Tasmania may have gotten off to a slow start for the Red Bull Holden Racing team with both drivers languishing toward the back of the field.
However an almost record breaking lap on fresh soft Dunlops by Jamie Whincup just minutes from the end of the first session put him right at the top of the leaderboard and pointed in the right direction for today's qualifying and race 1.
"Great run today,” he said after the sessions were completed. “We were there or thereabouts, there is plenty of items to action overnight, but we clocked some really great times. The car feels good, we had an awesome practice one but could have been a bit quicker in practice two, it was super competitive up the top there. Looking forward to heading into tomorrow strong."
Meanwhile, teammate and reigning series champion Shane van Gisbergen followed through in the second forty five minute session to make it a one two for Red Bull Holden Racing when all was said and done.
Now they have to repeat these stunning lap times to hopefully lock out the front row of the grid here later today.
"Very good day,” Shane said. “We started slow on the hard tyre, running through our set program. The car wasn't great, but we had a whole heap of stuff to try. We ran through it all and learned a lot, when we put it all together we had an awesome car for practice two. We started well, worked through another program, put on some fresh tyres and it was a great run. Today's result should be fairly representative of the weekend hopefully."
