Toll HSV Dealer Team’s Rick Kelly continued his run of top-three performances when he set the second-fastest lap time in practice for this weekend’s StarCity Triple Crown at Hidden Valley, near Darwin.
The defending champion’s best lap of 1 min. 09.52 sec. was less than three tenths of a second behind practice leader Mark Skaife, and seven-hundredths of a second ahead of third-placed Mark Winterbottom.
Interesting, these three drivers held the same three positions in practice times at the same event last year. In fact, the first six drivers this year all figured in the top six in practice last year at Hidden Valley, but in slightly shuffled order.
Kelly’s team-mate Garth Tander was one of the six, clocking the sixth fastest time this year with a best lap of 1 min. 9.82. sec.
While Kelly was fairly pleased with the way his #1 Commodore was handling the circuit, Tander and his engineers were preparing to make changes to the #16 Commodore to wring more speed out of it for Saturday’s qualifying.
Most drivers were complaining that they were finding it difficult to get the right balance for all corners, with oversteer in some spots and understeer in others.
Not too many drivers and crew were complaining about the weather, though, with the temperature hovering the mid-to-high 20s for most of the day – cool by Darwin standards. However, it is expected to warm up to Darwin’s normal steamy conditions over the weekend.
A light drizzle fell just before the practice session started, but was not sufficiently heavy to wet the track.
Kelly was quick out of the blocks, setting a best time of 1:10.02 on just his third lap. Tander was second fastest in that opening blast, and these times stood until late in the session when drivers started bolting of new “green” tyres for a crack at a fastest time.
Kelly was the first to crack the 1:10 barrier, slipping in with a lap of 1:09.84, followed by a 1:09.52. But HRT’s Skaife counter-punched with a 1:09.26 to take top time for the day.
Tander, who has finished second in Darwin for the past two years, was only one of six drivers to lap under 1 min. 10 sec, and his time was almost two-tenths of a second ahead of seventh-placed Steven Richards.
#1 Rick Kelly (fastest lap1:09.52): “Our plan was always to go out there and put a good time in. I think that in practice I haven’t pushed as hard as I should have in the past, and that had led through the weekend. We went out there quick out of the box and put a good time in, which is good. I am quite happy with the menu of changes we made – we made a lot of changes. But we made a couple towards the end of the session that weren’t great for us, and I think that cooked up our rear tyres a little bit. We brought the car back in and made some more changes and it actually went quicker according to our data. But I think we can improve from what we had out there. ”
#16 Garth Tander (fastest lap 1:09.82): “We are not where we want to be. Obviously we will be making some changes and looking to work our way up in tomorrow’s qualifying. ”
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