Darwin Supercars: Kelly tops opening practice

The Nissan Motorsport driver was at or near the top for the majority of the session, setting the first of the representative times with a 1m06.844s to go fastest inside the first 10 minutes.

Scott McLaughlin then spent a lengthy stint on top, having gone quickest with a 1m06.809s at the 11-minute mark, before Kelly fired back with his session-topping 1m06.506s with three minutes to go.

"You're not too worried about where you are at the end of Practice 1 – you don't know what tyres everyone is on – but the session itself for us was really strong," said Kelly.

"We tried a lot of stuff there and the car didn't fall away. And we found a couple of things that we used to our advantage at the end of the session for that time.

"It's a fantastic start. The car feels really solid, it gives me confidence to drive it nice and straight. Hopefully we can keep that for the weekend."

Jamie Whincup ended up second fastest, 0.11s behind Kelly, having made gains on his final run with two minutes to go. Michael Caruso improved even later than Whincup, capping off an excellent session for Nissan by going third quickest with just seconds left to run.

David Reynolds was fourth fastest, having been momentarily quickest with three minutes to go before Kelly took over at the top, while Shane van Gisbergen was fifth after making big gains at the end of the session and then promptly sliding off at Turn 1 right after he'd set his time.

McLaughlin failed to improve on his earlier effort and slipped back to sixth, ahead of Craig Lowndes and Tim Slade.

Will Davison was ninth quickest, and the only Tickford-built Ford in the Top 10. The actual Tickford Racing cars were nowhere near the pace, Chaz Mostert the best in 14th, while Richie Stanaway was 17th, Mark Winterbottom 18th, and Cam Waters 19th.

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	15	Rick Kelly	Nissan Altima	1'06.5065
2	1	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.6223	0.1158
3	23	Michael Caruso	Nissan Altima	1'06.7014	0.1949
4	9	David Reynolds	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.8031	0.2966
5	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.8062	0.2997
6	17	Scott McLaughlin	Ford Falcon FG X	1'06.8095	0.3030
7	888	Craig Lowndes	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.8803	0.3738
8	14	Tim Slade	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.9347	0.4282
9	230	Will Davison	Ford Falcon FG X	1'06.9648	0.4583
10	25	James Courtney	Holden Commodore ZB	1'06.9995	0.4930
11	19	Jack Le Brocq	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.0321	0.5256
12	2	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.0813	0.5748
13	99	Anton de Pasquale	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.1267	0.6202
14	55	Chaz Mostert	Ford Falcon FG X	1'07.1316	0.6251
15	12	Fabian Coulthard	Ford Falcon FG X	1'07.1432	0.6367
16	21	Tim Blanchard	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.1742	0.6677
17	56	Richie Stanaway	Ford Falcon FG X	1'07.1818	0.6753
18	5	Mark Winterbottom	Ford Falcon FG X	1'07.2818	0.7753
19	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Falcon FG X	1'07.3134	0.8069
20	78	Simona de Silvestro	Nissan Altima	1'07.3181	0.8116
21	8	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.3721	0.8656
22	400	Lee Holdsworth	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.3837	0.8772
23	7	Andre Heimgartner	Nissan Altima	1'07.5902	1.0837
24	33	Garth Tander	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.7670	1.2605
25	34	James Golding	Holden Commodore ZB	1'07.8711	1.3646
26	35	Todd Hazelwood	Ford Falcon FG X	1'07.8806	1.3741
27	4	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB	1'08.3505	1.8440