Bathurst 1000: Holdsworth fastest as crash halts practice

Holdsworth (Walkinshaw Andretti United) was sitting just under four-tenths clear of the field with less than two minutes to go when Pither hit the wall at Forrest's Elbow.

The Coca-Cola-backed car tagged the inside wall before clattering into the concrete on the outside.

It was the second major issue for the #96 Brad Jones Racing entry today after the car was sidelined for nearly all of Practice 1 with a power steering issue.

The early phase of the day's second hour-long session saw Holdsworth and Tony D'Alberto (Dick Johnson Racing) trading fastest times.

D'Alberto led the way as the benchmark sat at a low 2m07s, before Holdsworth became the first driver into the sixes with a 2m06.906s.

The next run saw D'Alberto improve to a 2m06.858s, before Holdsworth went faster again on consecutive laps with a 2m06.771s followed by a 2m06.401s.

On the 25-minute mark Erebus driver David Russell took over at the top with a 2m06.357s, that time holding up for 10 minutes until Craig Lowndes (Triple Eight) jumped to the top with a 2m06.164s.

With a little under a quarter of an hour to go Garth Tander (Triple Eight) and Alex Davison (Dick Johnson Racing) both took turns on top with low 2m06s laps.

Then, with 10 minutes to go, James Moffat (Tickford) burst into the fives with a 2m05.603s.

That initially left him almost half a second clear of the field, before Moffat was bumped down to second by Holdsworth's 2m05.225 – a time only a tenth wide of primary driver Chaz Mostert's Practice 1 effort.

"It's nice. These guys had a really quick car at the start of the year here and Chazzy dialled it in a bit more this morning for me to jump in and have a little bit of fun around the Mountain," said Holdsworth.

"I'm driving a lot more like [Chaz] this year, just from the way I've learnt to drive his car. So everything that's working for me is working for him and vice versa.

"It's great, it's a great combination."

Moffat and Davison ended up second and third ahead of Tander, while a late effort from Dean Fiore left him fifth for Brad Jones Racing.

Lowndes slipped back to sixth ahead of Luke Youlden (Erebus Motorsport), Zak Best (Tickford) and D'Alberto.

Russell rounded out the Top 10.

High-profile co-driver Russell Ingall, making his comeback in the Supercheap Auto-backed T8 wildcard entry, was slowest in the session, 3.2 seconds off the pace.

Bathurst 1000 Practice 2 results

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Interval
1	25	Chaz Mostert Lee Holdsworth	Holden Commodore ZB	2'05.225
2	6	Cameron Waters James Moffat	Ford Mustang GT	2'05.603	0.377	0.377
3	17	Will Davison Alex Davison	Ford Mustang GT	2'06.055	0.829	0.451
4	888	Shane van Gisbergen Garth Tander	Holden Commodore ZB	2'06.094	0.868	0.039
5	14	Todd Hazelwood Dean Fiore	Holden Commodore ZB	2'06.164	0.938	0.069
6	88	Jamie Whincup Craig Lowndes	Holden Commodore ZB	2'06.164	0.938	0.000
7	26	David Reynolds Luke Youlden	Ford Mustang GT	2'06.277	1.051	0.113
8	5	Jack Le Brocq Zak Best	Ford Mustang GT	2'06.332	1.107	0.055
9	11	Anton De Pasquale Tony D’Alberto	Ford Mustang GT	2'06.355	1.129	0.022
10	99	Brodie Kostecki David Russell	Holden Commodore ZB	2'06.357	1.131	0.001
11	7	Andre Heimgartner Matt Campbell	Ford Mustang GT	2'06.429	1.203	0.072
12	44	James Courtney Thomas Randle	Ford Mustang GT	2'06.476	1.250	0.047
13	2	Bryce Fullwood Warren Luff	Holden Commodore ZB	2'06.524	1.298	0.048
14	3	Tim Slade Tim Blanchard	Ford Mustang GT	2'06.737	1.511	0.213
15	9	Will Brown Jack Perkins	Holden Commodore ZB	2'06.829	1.604	0.092
16	20	Scott Pye James Golding	Holden Commodore ZB	2'06.926	1.700	0.096
17	96	Macauley Jones Chris Pither	Holden Commodore ZB	2'06.926	1.700	0.000
18	8	Nick Percat Dale Wood	Holden Commodore ZB	2'06.963	1.738	0.037
19	4	Jack Smith David Wall	Holden Commodore ZB	2'07.057	1.831	0.093
20	19	Fabian Coulthard Jonathon Webb	Holden Commodore ZB	2'07.126	1.900	0.068
21	34	Jake Kostecki Kurt Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	2'07.208	1.982	0.082
22	18	Mark Winterbottom Michael Caruso	Holden Commodore ZB	2'07.332	2.106	0.123
23	35	Zane Goddard Jayden Ojeda	Holden Commodore ZB	2'07.389	2.163	0.056
24	22	Garry Jacobson Dylan O’Keeffe	Holden Commodore ZB	2'08.030	2.804	0.641
25	39	Broc Feeney Russell Ingall	Holden Commodore ZB	2'08.443	3.218	0.413
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