Red Bull produced mixed results in an eventful second practice session for the Bathurst 1000, with Supercars legend Jamie Whincup going fastest while teammate Scott Pye crashed out.
The co-drivers’ session at Mount Panorama was hit by a 26-minute delay before ending under a red flag when Pye crashed in the final 10 minutes on Thursday.
The track required cleaning when a car from the previous Heritage Touring Cars category leaked oil at Conrod Straight before a snake catcher was sent to retrieve an eastern brown snake.
With the hour-long session reduced by 20 minutes, 41-year-old four-time Bathurst winner Whincup clocked a lap time of two minutes and 7.479 seconds to outpace Cooper Murray (Triple Eight) and Jayden Ojeda (Erebus) as cars battled to stay within the racing line due to the oil spillage.
Pye’s day ended in frustration after losing the rear of his Chevrolet Camaro at The Cutting and crashing straight into the wall as the corner tightened.
Championship leader Will Brown, who won last month’s Sandown 500 with Pye, was optimistic the damage sustained to the front right of their car was minor.
“It’s one of those things that are super easy to do. I’ve done it there. I think everyone’s done it there,” Brown said.
“It looks bad on TV, where it’s torn out the wheel there, but hopefully it’s not too bad.
“We’ve seen small shunts that have big consequences and bigger ones that don’t do that much damage.”
Five-time Bathurst 1000 winner Garth Tander finished 11th fastest after main driver Matt Payne shot to the top of the timing charts in the dying minutes earlier on Thursday.
Payne finished with a day’s fastest time of 2m 7.294s lap, just 3.023s short of reigning series champion Brodie Kostecki’s qualifying record set last year.
Andre Heimgartner was left kicking himself after going faster than Payne in the first and second sectors before going too wide at the final turn.
The Brad Jones Racing driver battled throughout the session, suffering a complete power-steering failure in the opening 15 minutes before being made to abandon a lap after going straight through the gravel near turn 10.
He finished 13th fastest, while Brown’s Triple Eight teammate Broc Feeney was in 15th.
Waters’ Tickford teammate Thomas Randle was able to place fifth after missing out on 35 minutes with a suspected power-steering pump issue.
Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert, second in the championship standings, was eighth.
Supercars legend Craig Lowndes in the Chevrolet Camaro finished last in 26th, while fellow wildcard entrant Matt Chahda was 24th.
