Bathurst: Feeney fastest in third practice, both MSR Camaros crash

Three red flags limited the run time of Friday’s first practice at Mount Panorama, which was topped by Red Bull’s Broc Feeney.

Matt Stone Racing is left with work to do after both their co-drivers, Cameron Crick and Dylan O’Keeffe, were involved in separate incidents on the mountain, which brought two of the red flags.

First, Crick (Cameron Hill) made heavy contact with the left-hand concrete wall on approach to Forrest’s Elbow 37 minutes into the one hour session.

Crick appeared to have nudged the outside wall through The Dipper, which pushed him off-line through the Esses. The contact caused significant damage to the left side of the #4 Camaro.

O’Keeffe’s crash, in Nick Percat’s #10 Camaro, came in the final six minutes of the session when he found the tyre wall at Griffins Bend.

The rear-first contact bounced him back onto the track and into the path of the approaching Brodie Kostecki, who ran across the narrow strip of grass on the inside of the corner to avoid a collision.

Between the two incidents, there was a further delay when Jaxon Evans ran long at Turn 1, and required a tow out of the sand. His car was undamaged and returned to proceedings once freed.

Through it all, Feeney’s 2:06.7842 emerged as the quickest time, and led home a quartet of Mustangs. Thomas Randle was only 0.0614 seconds off the pace, while James Courtney was 0.0086 seconds behind that.

Reigning Bathurst Champion Richie Stanaway was the fastest Kiwi in fourth, also less than one-tenth off Feeney’s benchmark.

Chaz Mostert, Jack Le Brocq, Will Davison, Percat, championship leader Will Brown and Hill completed the top ten.

Ryan Wood and Fabian Coulthard shared the #2 Walkinshaw Andretti United Mustang to go 15th quickest, one place ahead of the Cooper Murray and Craig Lowndes wildcard entry, which came to a stop with a fuel pressure issue as the final red flag was called.

Andre Heimgartner and Declan Fraser focused on long runs, completing 21 laps, the most of any competitors, to go 22nd fastest.

Matt Payne and Garth Tander were 23rd, one place to the good of Evans and Dean Fiore.

Supercars returns for Practice 4 at Mount Panorama at 3.05 pm NZST, with qualifying completing Friday’s proceedings at 6.15 pm.

Bathurst 1000 Practice 3 Results

Header Image: Fox Sports