McLaughlin smashes lap record in Practice 5

Scott McLaughlin slashed almost 0.8 seconds from Jamie Whincup’s two-year-old practice lap record in the final session before qualifying at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.

The Virgin Australia Supercars Championship leader stamped his authority on Mount Panorama with a series of stunning laps in the 60-minute Practice 5.

Click here for full Practice 5 results

It took just over 10 minutes for Shane van Gisbergen to go below Dean Canto’s best from this morning with 2:05.2264s.

Chaz Mostert then became the first to drop below Whincup’s practice lap record of 2:04.0907s set in the corresponding session in 2015 – the Supercheap Ford stopping the clocks at 2:04.7437s.

. He’s got it to a point where it’s good on the race runs as well. I’ve just focussed on qualy stuff… I’m happy.”

Mostert improved late to secure second but was 0.5282s adrift of McLaughlin.

“It’s been a tough lead-up to qualifying for us, we have been struggling in third practice and also today,” he said.

“Finally got on top of it, we don’t know exactly what the issue is, we changed a bunch of things and the car feels back to being a good car.

“I didn’t really nail the lap, I made a little bit of an error coming onto the front straight, but Scotty did a fantastic time, that’s going to be pretty hard to beat out there.”

Nick Percat was third for Brad Jones Racing while Fabian Coulthard, Cameron Waters and Mark Winterbottom made it five Fords in the top six.

Craig Lowndes jumped 12 spots to seventh as the chequered flag fell, while Scott Pye, James Moffat and Micahel Caruso rounded out the top 10.

Todd Kelly sat third for much of the session before falling to 12th, almost a full second slower than McLaughlin.

The Red Bull Holden Racing Team’s shaky start continued with Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen managing just 14th and 16th respectively.

Thursday pacesetter David Reynolds was even further down the order, ending up 19th after a scrappy final run failed to yield an improvement from his earlier 2:06.5751s.