Pukekohe Supercars: Mostert heads final practice
Chaz Mostert set the pace in the third and final Supercars practice session at Pukekohe.
Crews worked on race runs for much of the 30-minute session, Fabian Coulthard setting the early pace before Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin took over with 10 minutes to go.
To that point times had languished in the low 1m02s, Will Davison kick-starting the 'happy hour' with a 1m01.991s a couple of minutes from the end.
Mostert then set what would prove to be an unbeatable 1m01.898s next time around, the Tickford star attributing the session-topping time to a lack of tuning.
“Every time we touch the car we make it go slower,” said Mostert.
“The car rolled out of the box here the best it’s been.
“We keep trying to make the car better in little areas, but we’re just mad for a detune, so we just put it back to how it came over on the aeroplane and send it.”
Mostert's stiffest challenge came from birthday boy Nick Percat, who fell just 0.02s on his final run.
That bumped Davison down to third, while Scott McLaughlin put in another quiet performance, at least by his standards, with fourth.
"We lost a lot [of track time] yesterday, but I feel like we’re in a really good range there," said the runaway points leader.
"No new tyres for us just then, it felt pretty good. We’ll see how we go."
Lee Holdsworth and Jamie Whincup were next, followed by Cam Waters and Shane van Gisbergen.
The latter survived a brush with the Turn 4 wall midway through the session, blaming the off on some bad advice from Triple Eight boss Roland Dane.
"It was Roland’s idea, he was trying to tell us the Fords were using more kerb at Turn 2 and that doesn’t work!" said the Kiwi.
"We don’t know who was on what tyres, we ran a better set but not new. It feels good, but there’s a big gap to P1. Those guys are quick, so we still need to find a bit."
| Cla | # | Driver | Car | Time | Gap | Interval |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 55 |  Chaz Mostert | Ford Mustang GT | 1'01.8983 | ||
| 2 | 8 | Nick Percat | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'01.9250 | 0.0267 | 0.0267 |
| 3 | 23 | Will Davison | Ford Mustang GT | 1'01.9914 | 0.0931 | 0.0664 |
| 4 | 17 |  Scott McLaughlin | Ford Mustang GT | 1'02.0127 | 0.1144 | 0.0213 |
| 5 | 5 | Lee Holdsworth | Ford Mustang GT | 1'02.0202 | 0.1219 | 0.0075 |
| 6 | 88 | Jamie Whincup | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.1132 | 0.2149 | 0.0930 |
| 7 | 6 | Cameron Waters | Ford Mustang GT | 1'02.1540 | 0.2557 | 0.0408 |
| 8 | 97 | Shane van Gisbergen | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.1749 | 0.2766 | 0.0209 |
| 9 | 12 | Fabian Coulthard | Ford Mustang GT | 1'02.2050 | 0.3067 | 0.0301 |
| 10 | 99 | Anton De Pasquale | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.2365 | 0.3382 | 0.0315 |
| 11 | 35 | Todd Hazelwood | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.2905 | 0.3922 | 0.0540 |
| 12 | 14 | Tim Slade | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.3033 | 0.4050 | 0.0128 |
| 13 | 9 | David Reynolds | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.3538 | 0.4555 | 0.0505 |
| 14 | 33 | Richie Stanaway | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.3871 | 0.4888 | 0.0333 |
| 15 | 78 |  Simona de Silvestro | Nissan Altima | 1'02.4201 | 0.5218 | 0.0330 |
| 16 | 7 | Andre Heimgartner | Nissan Altima | 1'02.4548 | 0.5565 | 0.0347 |
| 17 | 34 | James Golding | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.4622 | 0.5639 | 0.0074 |
| 18 | 2 | Scott Pye | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.5172 | 0.6189 | 0.0550 |
| 19 | 18 | Mark Winterbottom | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.5241 | 0.6258 | 0.0069 |
| 20 | 22 | James Courtney | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.5470 | 0.6487 | 0.0229 |
| 21 | 15 | Rick Kelly | Nissan Altima | 1'02.6216 | 0.7233 | 0.0746 |
| 22 | 21 | Macauley Jones | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'02.7496 | 0.8513 | 0.1280 |
| 23 | 3 | Garry Jacobson | Nissan Altima | 1'02.8195 | 0.9212 | 0.0699 |
| 24 | 19 | Jack Le Brocq | Holden Commodore ZB | 1'03.3071 | 1.4088 | 0.4876 |
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About this article
| Series | Supercars |
| Event | Auckland |
| Author | Andrew van Leeuwen |
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