> Result: Practice 4
Audi Sport Team Valvoline completed its Friday clean sweep at Bathurst by setting fastest time of the day in night practice.
R8s had already topped both Am sessions as well as the Pro-led FP1 but it was Kelvin van der Linde who delivered the day’s first sub 2m04s lap as darkness fell over Mount Panorama.
The South African was fastest before a brief red flag was required to clear debris from The Chase and returned to set a 2m03.9569s that would remain untroubled thereafter. The car he shares with Nathanael Berthon and Brad Schumacher – who’d earlier paced FP2 – spent the rest of the session focusing on long-run pace.
FP3’s table-topping Coinspot Audi lapped 0.3s slower in Chaz Mostert’s hands to finish second fastest by less than a tenth from Maro Engel who saved his and Craft-Bamboo’s best ‘til last. The German finished a similar margin ahead of another Mercedes-AMG entered by SunEnergy1, while the second Audi Sport-backed entry completed the top-five.
Two more practice sessions take place tomorrow morning before an aggregated qualifying session determines the top-10 cars that will progress to the one-lap Pole Shootout.