This afternoon’s first ever practice session of Gen3 era has a Kiwi on top with Andre Heimgartner going fastest in Newcastle.
A 1:11.9958 saw Heimgartner as the only competitor to break the 1:12 barrier around an unforgiving Newcastle Street Circuit.
It was a Camaro one-two in the session with Will Brown second fastest by .1813 seconds.
David Reynolds was the quicket Mustang in setting the third best time to go one spot ahead of fellow Ford competitor Nick Percat.
Chaz Mostert made it three Mustangs in the top five to sit .6805 seconds off Heimgartner. He was followed home by James Golding, Tim Slade, Bryce Fullwood, Will Davison and Mark Winterbottom respectively.
The top 10 was made up of six Camaros and four Mustangs.
Defending champion Shane van Gisbergen was 11th best and just over 1 second off the pace of Heimgartner. His Red Bull teammate Broc Feeney could only manage to 20th best lap.
Other contenders from last season also struggled for pace on an evolving surface including Cam Waters in 19th and 1.5 seconds off the pace. Anton de Pasquale was 14th quickest.
The third Kiwi in the field, Matt Payne, put in 23 laps to set the 15th fastest time, the best of all rookies.
Track evolution was a major factor throughout 45 minute of running with the majority of quick laps coming in the final stages of the session.
Teams will be relieved their drivers made it through the first run of the new era unscathed following an incident free practice on a newly resurfaced track.
The Turn 2 braking point did challenge several drivers at varying points however, which saw Heimgartner, Payne and Macauley Jones needing the runoff before turning around.
Supercars will return to the track for their second practice session of the day at 3.45pm with a third to follow at 5.50pm.
Header image: Supercars
