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USA
Practice report

Winton Supercars: Caruso leads Nissan one-two in Practice 2

Michael Caruso edged out Nissan teammate Rick Kelly by 0.01s in the second Friday Supercars practice session at Winton.

Michael Caruso, Nissan Motorsport Nissan

Michael Caruso, Nissan Motorsport Nissan

Nissan Motorsports

With conditions continually improving thanks to rain this morning, the 45-minute session effectively boiled down to a five-minute shootout of qualifying runs right at the end.

Caruso went into that critical phase as the pacesetter, having set a 1m20.044s on the half-hour mark. And while the Nissan driver was quickly shuffled down the order as times leapt into the 1m19s during the Happy Hour, Caruso was able to make enough of a gain of his own to beat teammate Rick Kelly to top spot by 0.016s with a 1m19.710s.

"Any time [Rick and I] are a hundredth off each other, it hurts a lot. One hundredth is nothing!" said Caruso.

"It's still pretty slippery out there, to be honest. The guys did a good job in that session to get the car to a point where I'm reasonably happy. But it'll be a lot faster tomorrow as the car gets bit better with more rubber. We'll just keep working on it.

"I'm angry at myself," added Kelly.

"The guys gave us a really good car. We ran a scene set of tyres that were older, and they didn't handle great. Then we put the greens on and I got to Turn 1 like a monkey, way too slow. It made me angry that I dumped that time. Clearly if I'm dumping time like and that and second, then the car is very good."

Behind the leading Nissans it was BJR Holden driver Nick Percat, followed by Fabian Coulthard and Shane van Gisbergen.

Andre Heimgartner capped off a good session for Nissan with sixth, while Chaz Mostert led the way for Tickford.

There were some big names nowhere near the top, such as Scott McLaughlin, who finished down in 15th after focussing on race runs. The points leader improved with a couple of minutes to go to jump from outside the Top 20 to inside the Top 10, only to be shuffled back down as others improved.

"I think we've got a really good understanding of the car," he said. "At the end we just put a bit of a better set, but it wasn't greens or anything. It was nice to get a balance heading into tomorrow."

Jamie Whincup, meanwhile, only made a tiny gain on his final run and ended up 16th.

ClaDriverCarTimeGap
1 23 australia  Michael Caruso  Nissan Altima 1'19.7105  
2 15 australia  Rick Kelly  Nissan Altima 1'19.7270 0.0165
3 8 australia  Nick Percat  Holden Commodore ZB 1'19.7407 0.0302
4 12 new_zealand  Fabian Coulthard  Ford Falcon FG X 1'19.7651 0.0546
5 97 new_zealand  Shane van Gisbergen  Holden Commodore ZB 1'19.7971 0.0866
6 7 new_zealand  Andre Heimgartner  Nissan Altima 1'19.8424 0.1319
7 55 australia  Chaz Mostert  Ford Falcon FG X 1'19.8882 0.1777
8 14 australia  Tim Slade  Holden Commodore ZB 1'19.9812 0.2707
9 400 australia  Lee Holdsworth  Holden Commodore ZB 1'20.0640 0.3535
10 2 australia  Scott Pye  Holden Commodore ZB 1'20.0744 0.3639
11 99 australia  Anton de Pasquale  Holden Commodore ZB 1'20.0810 0.3705
12 9 australia  David Reynolds  Holden Commodore ZB 1'20.0999 0.3894
13 56 new_zealand  Richie Stanaway  Ford Falcon FG X 1'20.1037 0.3932
14 5 australia  Mark Winterbottom  Ford Falcon FG X 1'20.1144 0.4039
15 17 new_zealand  Scott McLaughlin  Ford Falcon FG X 1'20.1294 0.4189
16 1 australia  Jamie Whincup  Holden Commodore ZB 1'20.1865 0.4760
17 6 australia  Cameron Waters  Ford Falcon FG X 1'20.2570 0.5465
18 78 switzerland  Simona de Silvestro  Nissan Altima 1'20.2743 0.5638
19 35 australia  Todd Hazelwood  Ford Falcon FG X 1'20.4579 0.7474
20 888 australia  Craig Lowndes  Holden Commodore ZB 1'20.5363 0.8258
21 19 australia  Jack Le Brocq  Holden Commodore ZB 1'20.6513 0.9408
22 33 australia  Garth Tander  Holden Commodore ZB 1'20.7591 1.0486
23 34 australia  James Golding  Holden Commodore ZB 1'20.7873 1.0768
24 21 australia  Tim Blanchard  Holden Commodore ZB 1'20.8118 1.1013
25 230 australia  Will Davison  Ford Falcon FG X 1'20.8820 1.1715
26 25 australia  Jack Perkins  Holden Commodore ZB 1'21.4341 1.7236

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