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Motorsport
Motorsport
Sport
Andrew van Leeuwen

Darwin Supercars: Feeney tops opening practice

It was a tame half an hour to kick off the weekend, Mark Winterbottom setting what was the benchmark for most of the session – a 1m06.668s – on his first run.

There were some hints of excitement at turn 1 as drivers grappled with the low-grip Gen3 cars in the long braking zone, the likes of James Courtney, Reynolds and Jack Smith taking excursions down the escape road.

There was also a brief happy hour at the very end of the session with some green tyre runs, Reynolds finally running down Winterbottom's early time with a 1m06.543s with 20 seconds to go.

Feeney then pipped everybody at the flag with a 1m06.513s.

"It's a pretty short session to get straight into it, but it felt good out of the gate," said Feeney.

"The car was pretty reasonable. We're just looking for a few things.

"You can drive it so many different ways and it can change it a little bit. When you attack it, sometimes some parts of the track are good and the other parts not so.

"We're certainly not perfect at the moment, but a good start to the weekend."

Winterbottom hung on to third spot ahead of four Mustangs – Will Davison, Cam Waters, Todd Hazelwood and Anton De Pasquale.

Series leader Brodie Kostecki ended up eighth fastest while rookies Matt Payne and Cam Hill rounded out the best 10.

An in-form Will Brown fell just outside the 10 with the 11th fastest car, while Chaz Mostert was way back in 17th after running wide on his final run.

Shane van Gisbergen, meanwhile, was just 18th fastest after losing significant running thanks to a safety car test being conduced by Supercars.

Practice continues with a second half-hour session at 2:05pm local time.

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