It was the tale of the tyres for the Toll HSV Dealer Team as Garth Tander and Rick Kelly set the fourth and fifth fastest lap times in Friday practice for this weekend’s Placemakers V8 Supercars at Pukekohe, New Zealand.
The Toll HSV duo – first and second in the championship after two rounds – both questioned the consistency of tyre performance between the two sets of rubber they used in yesterday’s 50-lap session.
Defending champ Kelly spent most of the session at the top of the time sheets, but when he went to make a hot run on his second set of new tyres, he found that they didn’t deliver the anticipated gains. His best lap was 56.01 – only marginally faster than the time set on his his first set.
For Tander, it was the opposite situation: he struggled for three-quarters of the session, with multiple set-up changes to try to get the best out of the Commodore.
But when his crew bolted on his fresh set of “greens” for a hot lap or three, the car was suddenly right among the leaders, slicing several tenths from his lap times and setting a quickest lap of 55.87 seconds.
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