Supercars Championship leader Scott McLaughlin crashed in the opening stage of second practice today for the ITM Auckland SuperSprint. After setting the pace on Friday morning, McLaughlin crashed at Turn 3, three minutes in.
Having set an initial flying lap, he locked a front brake in his Shell Ford between Turns 2 and 3 after landing on the kerb, firing into the outside tyres.
“Just trying to find a little bit more of a driving thing that I’ve been working on into there, I just overstepped the mark, completely my fault,” McLaughlin said. “Sorry to everyone at Shell V-Power Racing, I’ve given them a whole lot of work that they didn’t need, I’ll give myself a good kick up the arse and come back tomorrow. “We’ve been locking into there all run, so I’ve been running a little bit more brake bias since the start of that session. “I just lost the rear braking into 2 there, lost it and it was gone, passenger.”
The session was red-flagged again inside the opening 10 minutes, when Andre Heimgartner’s Nissan stopped at pit entry. After an interrupted first half, Nick Percat led the way with a 1:03.2487s, 0.0098s clear of Scott Pye, followed by Whincup, Fabian Coulthard and van Gisbergen.