Brown tops opening Darwin practice, Heimgartner 4th

Will Brown has topped this afternoon’s opening practice session of the Darwin Triple Crown at Hidden Valley Raceway.

A late 1:06.4153 pipped Nulon Racing’s James Golding for the position in a frantic final 10 minutes, which also saw Jack Le Brocq and Andre Heimgartner move to within one-tenth of the fastest time.

Cam Waters, Mark Winterbottom, Thomas Randle, Matt Payne, Will Davison and Macauley Jones completed the top ten, with Red Bull’s Broc Feeney 11th and Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert 16th.

The entire field was separated by less than one second, with the top ten split by less than three-tenths.

Heimgartner was the quickest of the five-strong Kiwi contingent in fourth, while Payne most of the session but dropped to eighth in the final 10 minutes.

Jaxon Evans was 14th fastest, ahead of Richie Stanaway in 19th and Ryan Wood in 22nd

Payne’s 1:06.6282 was the early benchmark in the opening 10 minutes, and it remained atop the time sheets ahead of Winterbottom and Waters at the 30-minute mark.

Evans put in an impressive 1:06.8648 to climb to fourth shortly after the mid-point but dropped to fifth when Percat’s 1:06.7632 went ahead of Waters for third.

There was little movement until the final 10 minutes when the pace ramped up in preparation for this evening’s qualifying run.

Jack Le Brocq, Broc Feeney, and Heimgartner were among the first to move within the top 10 and improve on their early times as the session drew to a close.

Golding then climbed to the top with a 1:06.4309 with three minutes on the clock, and Waters climbed to second, just one-tenth behind.

Randle moved in behind his Tickford teammate in third before Brown shot to the top of the field with a 1:06.4153, just 0.0156 seconds faster than Golding entering the final minute.

Le Brocq and Heimgartner moved into the top four, less than one-tenth behind Brown and Golding, as the session drew to a close.

There were no noteworthy incidents during the hour-long session other than Courtney, Waters, and Brown requiring the use of the Turn 1 runoff.

Supercars return for qualifying at 5.05 pm this evening.

Darwin Triple Crown Practice 1 Results

Header Image: Supercars