Top five for Heimgartner in opening hit out in Perth

Andre Heimgartner’s second home race weekend on the trot opened in fast fashion, with the Brad Jones Racing driver finishing fourth in the hour-long practice session.

The on track action was cut short just shy of completion with Cameron Hill hitting the wall, which meant that a number of drivers weren’t able to get in their final green tyre runs.

The R&J Batteries driver had opted to have his earlier while team-mates Bryce Fullwood, Macauley Jones and Jaxon Evans were all caught out.

Evans in the SCT Logistics Camaro was knocking on the top ten, ending up 13th on the timesheets.

The #14 crew, which is guided by a re-jigged engineering lineup for this round as Phil Keed was caught out by a cancelled flight from the USA, focussed strongly on race runs and were happy with their pace.

Middy’s Electrical’s Fullwood took up 22nd on the timing screen, with Jones in the Pizza Hut Racing Camaro right behind him.

The second practice session of the weekend is at 9:15 AWST tomorrow.

Super 2

Super2 rookies Cody Gillis and Elliott Cleary got their first taste of Carco.com.au Raceway in Super2 machinery during their two practice sessions today. 

Elliott finished the sessions in P22 and P13 making steady progress, with Cody finishing in P18 and P20 due to multiple kerb strikes. 

The boys are back on track for qualifying at 11 AWST tomorrow. 

Supercars Quoteboard

Andre Heimgartner
 Supercars driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
"Good solid day, feel like there has been an improvement on previous times here so really happy with that and looking forward to tomorrow.  Race runs quite good degradation wasn't too bad but I feel like in the race that might be worse, but hopefully our strength in that way comes through. We'll need to work on that outright speed I think to try and stay up front."

Bryce Fullwood
Supercars driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro
" I think we've had a strong start here in Perth. We really focused a lot on race running. So I'm really comfortable with where we're at. Unfortunately there was a red flag at the end there and we were most of the way through our lap. We didn't get our name on the board but I felt like we know what time the car would have done and I was pretty happy. All smiles here for the minute and looking forward to tomorrow."

Macauley Jones
Supercars driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro
"Feel like the race run that we did was pretty strong and feel like the car is in a decent window. We didn't get any time on the greens, which was very annoying with the red flag, but that's part of the game. But yeah, it's hard to read when you don't get that new tyre at the end. But happy with the car."

Jaxon Evans
Supercars driver, #12 SCT Logistics Camaro
"I feel like the day was okay. Obviously the red flag stopped a few people from doing their green tyre run at the end there but I'm pretty happy with the progress that we made. My first time here in a supercar so fairly different. It's certainly a fast and flowing track and obviously quite short lap time so margins are quite close. Plenty to work on from the driving side of things and a little bit of fine tuning for the car but I think that was a positive first day on track.  Hopefully we can continue to improve and keep working towards the top 10 again for qualifying tomorrow."

Super2 Quoteboard

Elliott Cleary
Super2 driver, #19 ZB Commodore
"It was a solid day here at Carco Raceway. First session wasn't amazing but then we regroupped and made some progess. And then the second session I think was a big step in the right direction. I think we made quite a big gain. I think now that we've pieced it all together we will be pretty close to the pointy end. So looking forward to it tomorrow."

Cody Gillis
Super2 driver, #9 ZB Commodore
"In the first session we probably struggled a little bit, just fresh out on the track. Obviously everyone's in the same boat. Yeah, me and Elliott both showed a little bit in the first session. We made some changes for the second session definitely made headways. Some green tyres in second session probably didn't go as fast as we'd wanted to. I got a couple of curbs strikes. So none of my laps counted. I think we're heading in the right direction. So got a little bit more for tomorrow and it should be good."