Albert Park qualifying sessions extended

Divers will be afforded more time to fight for pole in two Albert Park qualifying sessions.

Changes have been made to the Beaurepaires Melbourne 400 schedule following qualifying.

The first and third ARMOR ALL Qualifying sessions are now be eight minutes, and the second and fourth sessions 12 minutes.

The first two sessions, which will set the grids for Races 6 and 7, will be held on Thursday afternoon.

Both sessions will be conducted solely on the Dunlop Soft tyre compound.

Friday morning's two sessions will commence at 9:40am AEST. Both sessions will be conducted on Hard tyres.

The two Thursday morning practice sessions have already proven the higher speeds of the revamped layout.

The practice/qualifying lap record under the previous circuit iteration was a 1:53.828s.

That was lowered to a 1:44.838s by Shane van Gisbergen through the two 30-minute practice sessions.

Cars are expected to go even faster as cloud cover continues to envelop the Albert Park precinct.

The revamped circuit impressed Will Davison, who is a key contender for pole on Thursday.

"It’s definitely fast around the back section of the lake,” Davison said.

"Comfortably flat now on soft tyres. Race trim will be interesting.

"You’re doing 270, 280 [km/h] and you’re sort of loaded for five or six seconds.

"It’s billiard table smooth. Grip is quite high so it’s just trying to understand how you can attack the corners.

"It’s similar but everything is in slightly different places. We’ve got a different drop gear [ratio] in the car, so it’s just a bit to relearn."

Cars will take to Albert Park for qualifying at 3:00pm AEST on Thursday afternoon.