Bathurst 1000: Mostert beats Lowndes in opening practice

The Prodrive Racing Australia driver lapped Mount Panorama in 2m06.303s to beat Triple Eight’s Lowndes by 0.06s, while both Brad Jones Racing and LD Motorsport will be racing the clock for Practice 2 after crashes for Tim Slade and Alex Rullo.

Garth Tander was first to set a representative time in the hour-long session, going quickest on his first flying lap with a 2m08.456s.

He was quickly replaced by the likes of BJR drivers Slade and Nick Percat who both peppered the 2m08.0s mark, before James Moffat jumped to the top before the 10-minute mark with a 2m07.932s

Slade improved to a 2m07.757s on his next lap, that time holding up until the quarter-hour mark when Michael Caruso shot to the top with a 2m07.399s.

David Reynolds was next to go fastest with a 2m07.346s, before being immediately replaced by Slade’s 2m07.095s.

That was as good as the session got the Slade, however. Right on the half-hour mark, still sitting on top of the times, the BJR driver went into the wall on the way out of the dipper. The impact left his Commodore badly damaged, and sparked the session’s first red flag.

“The car was awesome, I was really comfortable,” said Walsh. “I just lost the rear and yeah… I clipped the fence pretty hard.

“I’m not sure what the extent of the damage is, I guess the guys will have a look and we’ll go from there.”

When the session restarted the times quickly dipped into the sixes, Caruso first with a 2m06.917s before Mostert went quickest with a 2m06.913s.

With 20 minutes to go the session was stopped for a second time, Alex Rullo hitting the outside of the wall at Forrest’s Elbow.

The times continued to fall when the session went green once again, Caruso going back to the top with a 2m06.626s.

That time was bested with two minutes to go when Coulthard went quickest with a 2m06.6905s, before Mostert banged in a 2m07.303s.

The likes of Lowndes and Todd Kelly both tried to knock Mostert off in the closing seconds, but couldn’t beat the Prodrive Ford.

“We just kept tuning the car,” said Mostert. “It felt a little bit nervous to start with, but it feels good out of the box.

“I had a lot of fun in that session, I wish it could have kept going. It’s good to be at the pointy end.”

Lowndes ended up second, with Kelly just two-tenths behind Mostert in third.

Coulthard wound up fourth, with Caruso slipping down to fifth with the late improvements.

Sandown 500 winner Cam Waters was sixth quickest thanks to a late 2m06.628s, followed by championship leader Scott McLaughlin.

Reynolds was shuffled back to eighth, with Rick Kelly and Jamie Whincup rounding out the Top 10.

While both Lowndes and Whincup were in near the front of the field, Shane van Gisbergen was well off the pace in the #97 Red Bull Holden. He wound up just 23rd fastest, more than a second and a half off Mostert’s benchmark.