Townsville Supercars: Courtney tops opening practice

The Tickford Ford driver was best of the green tyre runners at the back end of the session, a 1m12.629s vaulting him to the top right at the chequered flag.

The margins were tight, though, with the top four separated by less than a tenth and 22 of the 24 drivers within a second.

Van Gisbergen finished up just 0.05s behind Courtney with a late quali sim of his own, although he did need two bites at the cherry. He had gone purple in Sector 1 a lap earlier, but ran wide at Turn 6.

Bryce Fullwood was third quickest from Scott Pye, while Chaz Mostert, who'd been on top since the 10-minute mark, slipped back to fifth as more drivers switched to greens.

Andre Heimgartner, Anton De Pasquale, Todd Hazelwood, Scott McLaughlin and Nick Percat rounded out the Top 10.

David Reynolds spent half of the session stuck in the garage thanks to a misfire, eventually remedied with a coil pack change. He immediately jumped into the top five once on track, but slipped back to 11th after not running greens at the end.

Jamie Whincup didn't run a new tyre either and ended up 18th quickest.

Cla	#	Driver	Time	Gap	Interval
1	44	James Courtney	1'12.629
2	97	Shane van Gisbergen	1'12.686	0.056	0.056
3	2	Bryce Fullwood	1'12.699	0.070	0.013
4	20	Scott Pye	1'12.724	0.095	0.025
5	25	Chaz Mostert	1'12.784	0.154	0.059
6	7	Andre Heimgartner	1'12.893	0.264	0.109
7	99	Anton De Pasquale	1'12.915	0.286	0.021
8	14	Todd Hazelwood	1'12.940	0.310	0.024
9	17	Scott McLaughlin	1'12.979	0.350	0.039
10	8	Nick Percat	1'12.982	0.353	0.002
11	9	David Reynolds	1'13.026	0.397	0.044
12	6	Cameron Waters	1'13.097	0.468	0.071
13	55	Jack Le Brocq	1'13.128	0.498	0.030
14	3	Macauley Jones	1'13.164	0.534	0.036
15	22	Chris Pither	1'13.334	0.705	0.170
16	35	Garry Jacobson	1'13.340	0.711	0.006
17	5	Lee Holdsworth	1'13.366	0.737	0.025
18	88	Jamie Whincup	1'13.406	0.777	0.039
19	34	Jake Kostecki	1'13.407	0.778	0.001
20	12	Fabian Coulthard	1'13.420	0.791	0.013
21	19	Alex Davison	1'13.434	0.805	0.013
22	18	Mark Winterbottom	1'13.580	0.951	0.146
23	4	Jack Smith	1'13.641	1.012	0.061
24	15	Rick Kelly	1'13.751	1.122	0.110
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