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After two practice sessions this morning, qualifying hardly got off the ground due to a dramatic crash involving last year’s winner Chaz Mostert (Pepsi Max Crew).
Just under five minutes into the qualifying session, and with no one having the opportunity to complete a flying lap Chaz Mostert lost control coming out of the ‘esses’ and had a massive crash at Forest Elbow.
His car flew up over the concrete barrier and ended up damaging the safety barrier above, which was protecting the marshal hut behind it. However, the car also collected that and four marshal’s were injured, one in hospital tonight.
Mostert himself did not escape injury, being helicoptered away from the track with a suspected broken upper leg and wrist.
After a lengthy delay, it was announced qualifying for the afternoon had been cancelled due to the need to repair the safety barrier and marshal hut.
Earlier in the morning, the co-drivers practice session four was taken out by Mostert’s partner, Cameron Waters. He and Luke Youlden were the only driers to go under the 2:06 mark during the session, with Russell Ingal in third place.
The next session, would see the lap record not only broken but completely smashed by Jamie Whincup who became the first V8 Supercar driver to break 2:05 at the mountain, setting a time of 2:04:9097. Scott Pye was three tenths of a second further back, with Jason Bright in third place.
With qualifying still needing to be run, it has been moved to start at 12:30pm (AEDT) tomorrow as a 30 minute session. Practice session six will still start, as scheduled at 10:20am (AEDT) but has been shortened to 40 minutes. It will all be live here on The Roar.
The V8 Supercar Championship heats up with Friday practice and qualifying for the 2015 Bathurst 1000 after some exceptionally quick lap times during the three practice sessions yesterday. Join The Roar for live coverage of two practice sessions and qualifying from 9am (AEDT).
Qualifying will set positions 11-27 on the grid for the big race, with the top 10 shootout tomorrow to decide the rest.
However before we can get to qualifying there will be another two practices with session four starting at 9:10am (AEDT) and session five at 11:40am (AEDT) respectively. They will last for 45 minutes each.
Session four will only be available to the co-drivers and will give them some more valuable time in the car as they prepare to the best of their ability for the 1000, while practice five is open to all the drivers and will be viewed at as another opportunity to fine tune for qualifying.
Qualifying itself will begin at 3:50pm (AEDT) and last for 40 minutes, in what will be a mad rush between the main drivers to register good lap times.
Not making the top 10 shootout has historically made it incredibly hard to win the race on Sunday, however that didn’t stop Chaz Mostert and Paul Morris in last year’s race who went from the starting in last to winning the race.
That shouldn’t really undervalue qualifying though, as last year’s race was one of the craziest ever seen at the Mountain with the half time intermission while the track was repaired.
After the lap record was smashed in 2014 by Fabian Coulthard with the track being resurfaced, it was questioned coming into yesterday’s practice sessions whether we would see any more extremely low lap times, or even a new lap record.
Coulthard was in fact the man to answer the question for us, setting a new lap record of 2.05.4786 during the third practice session. He also finished seventh in practice session one, and his co-driver Luke Youlden was in the top half of the field during the second session. No doubt he will be at the top end of qualifying today if he can stay out of trouble.
Maybe the most consistent car yesterday though was the Bottle-O Racing Team of David Reynolds and Dean Canto. They showed good pace all day long and managed to get themselves into the top three for all of the sessions.
The championship leading Pepsi Max Crew, with Mark Winterbottom and Chaz Mostert had a tyically good day and will be in a good position for qualifying today, with Mostert managing to take out practice one.
The dark horse for qualifying though, looks to be Shane Van Gisbergen who was in the top five each time he stepped into the car and is generally speaking, a very good qualifier.
Both the cars for the Holden Racing Team and Red Bull Racing Australia had mixed results throughout the day and will be looking to improve consistency to make the shootout.
Prediction: Qualifying is a strange beast and Mostert has been brilliant at it this year. Either him or Van Gisbergen to take out first, and at least one big name to miss the top 10 shootout tomorrow.
Join The Roar for live coverage of two practice sessions and qualifying for the 2015 Bathurst 1000 from 9am (AEDT) and don’t forget to leave your comments if you’re following the action!
Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryde