Phillip Island Supercars: McLaughlin fastest despite traffic woes

The DJR Team Penske driver spent the majority of the session on top with a comfortable margin, a 1m30.186s set on the five-minute mark leaving him over three-tenths clear of the likes of Jamie Whincup and Chaz Mostert.

There was little in the way of meaningful improvement in the middle part of the session, which for the third time this weekend was briefly interrupted by wild geese that wandered onto the circuit.

With three minutes to go McLaughlin looked set to try and lower his benchmark, however he was baulked by a slow-moving James Golding at the apex of Turn 1.

That opened the door for teammate Fabian Coulthard to have a crack at top spot, the Friday pacesetter falling 0.04s short of McLaughlin's time.

James Courtney also threatened McLaughlin's time with a purple first sector, but ultimately couldn't even best the 1m30.417s he'd set a lap earlier.

And that left the reigning champ on top, despite effectively missing out on his final run due to that Golding run-in.

“It was a bit of a balls-up. It’s not the nicest thing going down the front straight and cars weaving going into one of the fastest corners in Australia,” said McLaughlin.

“It was pretty wild. I actually thought he saw me there so I was going to keep going, then he kept coming across and I was like ‘oh crap’.

“At least it’s only practice, but Jimmy is a smart guy, I’m sure he won’t do it again."

Golding admitted after the session that he'd simply failed to spot McLaughlin coming.

“I was just warming my tyres up out of the pits and didn’t see Scotty coming up behind me,” he said. “I obviously wouldn’t be doing that sort of thing on purpose, lucky it wasn’t qualifying otherwise I’d be getting a penalty."

Courtney ended up best of the rest behind the Penske Mustangs, the Walkinshaw Holden driver followed by Cam Waters, Whincup and Mostert, the latter two not improving on their earlier times.

Todd Hazelwood was seventh fastest, Lee Holdsworth eighth, and Andre Heimgartner and Scott Pye rounding out the Top 10.

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	17	Scott McLaughlin	Ford Mustang GT	1'30.1861
2	12	Fabian Coulthard	Ford Mustang GT	1'30.2304	0.0443
3	22	James Courtney	Holden Commodore ZB	1'30.4177	0.2316
4	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT	1'30.4907	0.3046
5	88	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	1'30.5027	0.3166
6	55	Chaz Mostert	Ford Mustang GT	1'30.5605	0.3744
7	35	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	1'30.5610	0.3749
8	5	Lee Holdsworth	Ford Mustang GT	1'30.7593	0.5732
9	7	Andre Heimgartner	Nissan Altima L33	1'30.7711	0.5850
10	200	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	1'30.9274	0.7413
11	9	David Reynolds	Holden Commodore ZB	1'30.9939	0.8078
12	15	Rick Kelly	Nissan Altima L33	1'31.0991	0.9130
13	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	1'31.1468	0.9607
14	18	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB	1'31.2502	1.0641
15	99	Anton De Pasquale	Holden Commodore ZB	1'31.2872	1.1011
16	3	Garry Jacobson	Nissan Altima L33	1'31.3018	1.1157
17	14	Tim Slade	Holden Commodore ZB	1'31.3836	1.1975
18	21	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB	1'31.4554	1.2693
19	8	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	1'31.5832	1.3971
20	23	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	1'31.5988	1.4127
21	34	James Golding	Holden Commodore ZB	1'31.6841	1.4980
22	78	Simona de Silvestro	Nissan Altima L33	1'31.6926	1.5065
23	33	Richie Stanaway	Holden Commodore ZB	1'31.8125	1.6264
24	19	Jack Le Brocq	Holden Commodore ZB	1'32.0771	1.8910