Waters tops opening day in New Zealand

With a lap of 1:02.56 in the waning moments of Friday afternoon's second free practice session at Pukekohe for the Auckland Supersprint, Cameron Waters posted the fastest lap of all on the opening day of competition. The Monster energy driver finished two tenths ahead of Red Bull Holden's Jamie Whincup.

Waters who recently enjoyed the announcement of Monster Energy remaining on his FG X next season, recovered from a difficult morning session where he placed 24^th to lead the field on a brisk November Friday in New Zealand where rain fell between the two opening practice sessions.

“We're obviously pretty happy with that practice,” he said. “Practice 1 my car was really bad and we struggled for balance, I couldn't brake the thing and we were pulling our hair out. We changed a fair bit between practice sessions and the car was awesome then. I think there's a bit more in it, and we'll try to do it again tomorrow.”

Third quickest was Waters teammate Mark Winterbottom, who stated that h finally felt comfortable in the Bottle-O Ford….

“The car was good at the end. We have really good race pace and unfortunately we got a bit of traffic those last two laps,” Frosty said. “It's just been a run of the year, we never get a clean run. The car was good, but we still didn't maximise it at the end. It's sort of taken ten months to get my car to sort of where I feel comfortable, and I think now we can start to get some good results."

Home hero Scott McLaughlin was fourth quickest followed by the third Prodrive entry of Chaz Mostert with Shane van Gisbergen in sixth.

Tim Slade, David Reynolds, Craig Lowndes and Lee Holdsworth rounded out the top ten.