Red Bull makes charge
said. “We need to make the cars better and I think we have made an improvement.’’
Whincup set the scene for this weekend’s battle between Red Bull and the Shell Fords early this week by declaring he was fed up with finishing second.
And yesterday Whincup showed he had a car that could deliver on his desire.
“I think we had a good test day and made some gains,’’ Whincup said.
“And I hope that continues for the rest of the weekend.’’
McLaughlin shook his head after emerging from the Ford that trailed Whincup by less than half a second.
“I want to be the fastest,’’ a disappointed said yesterday.
“I always want to be the fastest. The car is actually really nice and I was just trying to find the limit to drive it out there. I probably overstepped McLaughlin the mark and that is what practice is all about.
“The car is good in both race trim and qualifying trim so I am really looking forward to the race.’’
Earlier Rick Kelly drove his Nissan to the top in the event opening session.
Showing his mastery of the 14 turn track, the veteran clocked a 1.06.51 in a last-lap effort to edge out a Triple Eight blitz with Craig Lowndes, Shane Van Gisbergen and Whincup following the fast-finishing Altima.
“We ran a new set of tyres and I don’t think anyone else did,” Kelly said.
“There’s definitely a lot of time in the car still.
“We’ve only done a couple of runs here today so there’s certainly more to come.
“I had a little bit of a throttle drama at that critical point where you’re trying to crack initial throttle, it’s a bit sticky and breaks through very aggressively.
“It wasn’t the cleanest of laps, but a nice easy thing to fix up.”
Hidden Valley veteran Jason Bright, who has competed in 19 of the Darwin’s 20 events, stopped the session with a rare practice smash.
“I just went a little bit hot in there, ended up in the marbles and ran out of road,” Bright said.
“It’s disappointing. The car is very fast at the moment but thankfully it’s straight except for the quarter panel so we’ll get back out this afternoon.”
Bright spewed past the gravel trap and hit a tyre wall after the turn-11 mishap.