The Bend Supercars: McLaughlin pips Mostert in P2

McLaughlin ran green tyres quite early in the session, the benchmark time – a 1m15.201s – coming just eight minutes in to the half-hour hit-out.

He then went for a second qualifying simulation later in the session, but despite a purple first sector was unable to match his earlier time.

"That's one thing we've brought on since Townsville," said McLaughlin about running two sets of greens. "We need to get comfortable with our qualifying, knowing that we need to qualify at the front and that's half our job done.

"Overall I'm really happy, the car was really balanced. I'm really enjoying the new circuit, the West circuit is enjoyable. It's a new challenge."

Mostert ended up second by just 0.09s, his time also coming earlier in the session after he ran wide at the last corner on his final qualifying sim.

Fabian Coulthard was third fastest followed by Bryce Fullwood, Anton De Pasquale and Nick Percat.

It was a quiet showing from the Triple Eight Holdens, meanwhile, title contender Whincup the best of the Red Bull cars down in eighth.

Shane van Gisbergen was just 17th quickest, a lock-up late in the session proving costly.

Cla	#	Driver	Time	Gap	Interval
1	17	Scott McLaughlin	1'15.201
2	25	Chaz Mostert	1'15.293	0.092	0.092
3	12	Fabian Coulthard	1'15.346	0.145	0.053
4	2	Bryce Fullwood	1'15.410	0.209	0.063
5	20	Scott Pye	1'15.461	0.260	0.050
6	99	Anton De Pasquale	1'15.525	0.323	0.063
7	8	Nick Percat	1'15.536	0.335	0.011
8	88	Jamie Whincup	1'15.586	0.385	0.050
9	14	Todd Hazelwood	1'15.599	0.397	0.012
10	7	Andre Heimgartner	1'15.625	0.424	0.026
11	55	Jack Le Brocq	1'15.655	0.453	0.029
12	15	Rick Kelly	1'15.694	0.493	0.039
13	5	Lee Holdsworth	1'15.721	0.520	0.026
14	44	James Courtney	1'15.756	0.555	0.035
15	18	Mark Winterbottom	1'15.786	0.585	0.029
16	6	Cameron Waters	1'15.804	0.602	0.017
17	97	Shane van Gisbergen	1'15.859	0.658	0.055
18	3	Macauley Jones	1'15.865	0.663	0.005
19	9	David Reynolds	1'15.883	0.681	0.017
20	4	Jack Smith	1'15.976	0.774	0.093
21	34	Jake Kostecki	1'15.978	0.777	0.002
22	19	Alex Davison	1'16.019	0.818	0.041
23	22	Chris Pither	1'16.101	0.899	0.081
24	35	Garry Jacobson	1'16.105	0.904	0.004
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