Payne pips Waters to top opening Bathurst practice

Penrite Racing’s Matt Payne has topped the time sheets in an incident-free opening practice session for the 2024 Bathurst 1000.

Payne’s best effort of 2:07.2941 came in the final 10 minutes of the 60-minute session and was just 0.0366 seconds faster than the previous best, which had been set by Cam Waters.

Championship leader Will Brown threatened both times on his final flyer, but ultimately fell 0.0007 seconds short of Waters for third, leaving a split of 0.0373 seconds between the top three drivers.

Cameron Hill was over one-tenth off the leading trio in fourth, while Thomas Randle, who only completed 10 laps after needing to replace a power steering pump early in the session, was fifth.

James Golding, David Reynolds and Chaz Mostert completed the top eight, ahead of reigning Bathurst champion Richie Stanaway, who showed good pace and spent time atop the timing sheets. Bryce Fullwood completed the top ten.

Andre Heimgartner was another Kiwi who was quick over the hour, but lost track time after suffering a power steering failure at The Chase in the opening 15 minutes.

Once repaired, he returned as one of the fastest cars, but missed the apex at the final corner on his final flyer which had looked set to challenge towards the top of the leaderboard. Instead, a flurry of late times demoted his to 13th place, over seven-tenths behind Payne.

Heimgartner also lost another quick lap, where he had been the fastest going up the mountain, when he ran over the gravel at McPhillamy Park.

Jaxon Evans leapfrogged Ryan Wood to go 16th quickest on his final lap, with his 2:08.2042 only 0.0208s slower than Red Bull’s Broc Feeney, who was 15th.

Wood and his teammate Mostert both had to abandon laps in the final 20 minutes as they ran long at Hell Corner.

Unlike Sandown, where the majority of teams split first practice between co-drivers and primary drivers, only six pairings did so at Bathurst. The co-drivers who spent time behind the wheel were Scott Pye (Brown), Cameron Crick (Hill), Tony D’Alberto (Anton De Pasquale), Jamie Whincup (Feeney), Jack Perkins (James Courtney), and Cooper Murray (Lowndes).

Supercars return for one more track session on Thursday, which is a co-driver only practice session at 6.55 pm NZST.

Bathurst 1000 Practice 1 Results

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