Coulthard puts Penske P1 in Ipswich practice

Fabian Coulthard raised hopes of a maiden DJR Team Penske victory on home soil at Queensland Raceway by setting the pace in Friday practice.

Following on from impressive speed at the venue in pre-season testing, Coulthard jumped to the top of the order with just over two minutes of the hour long session remaining.

A 1:09.71s was good enough to edge TeamVortex’s Craig Lowndes by 0.05s.

The Holden ace proved unable to respond as he struck traffic on his final run.

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“It’s so hard around here, you never know where you’re at until you put a decent tyre on at the end of the day,” said Coulthard, who had been 12th in the opening session.

“Everyone is separated by tenths of seconds but it’s not a bad way to end the day.”

It had taken just 10 minutes for Michael Caruso to eclipse the 1:10.33s that he’d recorded to top the opening session.

Lowndes immediately went faster still and sat atop the order until Scott McLaughlin took over the front-running at halfway.

The Caltex Holden then became the first to drop into the 1:09s 10 minutes from the end, shaving 0.1s from the Volvo to leave the benchmark at 1:09.95s.

That time stood until Coulthard’s late effort which brought the pace to within 0.7s of Will Davison’s 2013 practice lap record.

Chaz Mostert ended the day third fastest time of the day ahead of Rick Kelly, Chris Pither and Mark Winterbottom.

McLaughlin eventually drifted to seventh ahead of Shane van Gisbergen, Scott Pye and Dale Wood.

Jamie Whincup was just 19th after making a mistake at Turn 4 on his final tyre run.

David Reynolds was one place higher in 18th after missing the early part of the session while his Erebus team fixed a rollbar issue with the Penrite Holden.

A final 15 minute practice session will be held tomorrow before qualifying.

Result: Virgin Australia Supercars Championship Coates Hire Ipswich Super Sprint Practice 2

1	DJR Team Penske	Fabian Coulthard	Ford Falcon FG/X	1:09.7061*S
2	TeamVortex	Craig Lowndes	Holden Commodore VF	1:09.7583 S	00.0522
3	Supercheap Auto Racing	Chaz Mostert	Ford Falcon FG/X	1:09.8354 S	00.1293
4	Sengled Motorsport	Rick Kelly	Nissan Altima	1:09.8665 S	00.1604
5	Super Black Racing	Chris Pither	Ford Falcon FG/X	1:10.0075 S	00.3014
6	The Bottle-O Racing Team	Mark Winterbottom	Ford Falcon FG/X	1:10.0556 S	00.3495
7	Wilson Security Racing GRM	Scott McLaughlin	Volvo S60	1:10.0778 S	00.3717
8	Red Bull Racing Australia	Shane Van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.0942 S	00.3881
9	DJR Team Penske	Scott Pye	Ford Falcon FG/X	1:10.1191 S	00.4130
10	GB Galvanizing Racing	Dale Wood	Nissan Altima	1:10.1365 S	00.4304
11	Wilson Security Racing GRM	James Moffat	Volvo S60	1:10.1539 S	00.4478
12	carsales Racing	Todd Kelly	Nissan Altima	1:10.1585 S	00.4524
13	LD Motorsport	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.2245 S	00.5184
14	Freightliner Racing	Tim Slade	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.2271 S	00.5210
15	Holden Racing Team	James Courtney	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.2456 S	00.5395
16	Nissan Motorsport	Michael Caruso	Nissan Altima	1:10.2669 S	00.5608
17	Team BOC	Jason Bright	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.3517 S	00.6456
18	Erebus Motorsport Penrite	David Reynolds	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.3533 S	00.6472
19	Red Bull Racing Australia	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.3645 S	00.6584
20	LD Motorsport	Andre Heimgartner	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.3890 S	00.6829
21	Team Cooldrive	Tim Blanchard	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.4221 S	00.7160
22	Team Darrell Lea STIX	Will Davison	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.4261 S	00.7200
23	Monster Energy Racing	Cameron Waters	Ford Falcon FG/X	1:10.4748 S	00.7687
24	Erebus Motorsport Hungry Jacks	Craig Baird	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.8874 S	01.1813
25	Holden Racing Team	Garth Tander	Holden Commodore VF	1:10.9320 S	01.2259
26	Preston Hire Racing	Kurt Kostecki	Holden Commodore VF	1:11.3977 S	01.6916