Kiwi drivers took all opportunities presented to them in Practice 1 and Practice 2 to head out on the track to learn for this weekend’s upcoming racing at Albert Park.
Practice 1
With running on track scarce due to the jam-packed nature of the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, all drivers were out on track as soon as the session started to bank valuable data.
Due to the red-flag coming out early in the Porsche Carrera Cup practice session due to a crash, the track had not seen any competitive laps set and Supercars drivers were the first category to set competitive lap times.
Early on in the thirty-minute session, joint championship leader Payne hit the top of the timesheets early with a 1.50.834, but would quickly be beaten as the track cleaned up and times dropped. He would soon go to P1 again with a 1.49.486, ahead of Wood and Heimgartner, who sat in twelfth and twentieth with twenty minutes to go.
Wood put in a good lap to be the lead Supra in fifth with a 1.49.637 with five minutes to go.
With Brad Jones Racing celebrating 800 Supercars Championship starts this weekend, Heimgartner’s car changed to run the number #800 from his traditional #14. Before the last flying laps, he sat in eighteenth with a 1.50.187.
Jackson Walls took a sightseeing trip and headed off into the gravel trap in the final sector with a few minutes to go, and a local yellow flag was flown off of Turn 10 as PremiAir Racing’s Declan Fraser parked up on the exit of the corner with an electrical issue.
At the fall of the chequered flag, Jayden Ojeda sat top of the leaderboard with a late 1.47.881, seven tenths ahead of Anton de Pasquale in second. Ford made up third to tenth, with Payne being the top Kiwi for the session in tenth. Wood finished the first practice 1.756 seconds behind Ojeda in twelfth, while Heimgartner finished in sixteenth position.
Practice 2
Practice 2 kicked off with all drivers out immediately out on track, with a cleaner track allowing them to set more representative lap times.
Payne quickly eclipsed his Practice 1 lap time, setting a 1.48.602, which left him third after 8 minutes. Wood and Heimgartner also went quicker than Practice 1 and left them in thirteenth and nineteenth.
The session stagnated through the mid-session, with drivers focusing on longer length runs rather than quick one lap runs.
Aaron Cameron was the first driver to get into the 1.47’s, setting a 1.47.811 with fifteen minutes to go.
With ten minutes to go, Ojeda smashed the Turn 5 outside wall which quickly brought out the red flag.
Due to the event’s tight schedule, the session was not resumed.
That meant that Payne once again finished as the top Kiwi in the session, finishing in seventh. Wood ended Practice 2 in eighteenth, while Heimgartner finished in twenty-first.
Drivers and teams now turn their attention to Race 4 and 5 qualifying this afternoon, kicking off at 4:20pm NZST (5 March)
