McLaughlin leads practice
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5:30 PM Fri 2 December, 2011
Source: BigPond Sport
FUJITSU Racing young gun Scott McLaughlin has topped both practice sessions today at the Sydney Olympic Park street circuit to head the way in the final round of the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series.
The Falcon driver – who sits fourth in the series in just his second year in the category - clocked a 1m29.1142s lap in the second 40-minute session to lead fellow Ford pilots Chaz Mostert (Ford Performance Racing), David Russell (Team Jayco) and Jack Perkins (Supercheap Auto/Sonic Motor Racing).
The performance backs up McLaughlin’s efforts in Sydney last year, where the teenager qualified on the front row of the grid for the first time in his V8 Supercar career.
Title leader Andrew Thompson, who only needs to finish 12th or better in Race 1 tomorrow to seal his first V8 crown, only managed three laps this morning at slow speed with a slipping clutch in his Monster Commodore.
The winner of five of the six rounds this year, Thompson managed to return to the track for Practice 2 and clocked the fifth quickest time, albeit 0.69s off the pace set by McLaughlin.
Thompson wasn’t the only one to strike dramas though, with Team Jayco’s Tim Blanchard only completing three laps in Practice 2 after his Falcon broke a tailshaft and cut a hole in his car’s floor.
Behind Thompson on the timesheets came the returning Andrew Jones (who is also on standby for Team BOC teammate Jason Bright should his ribs prove troublesome in the main V8 Supercars Championship event), Nick Percat, Paul Morris, David Wall and Taz Douglas.
There are 24 cars in the field for this weekend’s final round of the Fujitsu Series, with qualifying to be held tomorrow at 9.00am with Race 1 (over 17 laps) at 12.45pm.
BigPond Sport will live stream both Fujitsu Series races over the weekend from the Live App, so tune in to catch all of the action from the development category.
