Ford driver Will Davison has laid down an early marker by clocking the fastest time by a touring car at Sandown in the V8 Supercar test day in Melbourne.

In the only official pre-season hit-out before the opening round of the V8 Supercar championship in Adelaide on March 3 and 4, Davison clocked a best lap of one minute, 09.3230 seconds late on Saturday afternoon.

That time beat the previous best V8 Supercar lap at the circuit, set by Jamie Whincup in qualifying in 2009, by more than three-tenths of a second.

Davison topped the timesheets at the test day ahead of veteran Craig Lowndes and Lee Holdsworth, who impressed in his first drive of the Irwin Tools Falcon.

Holdsworth’s replacement at Garry Rogers Motorsport, Frenchman Alex Premat, ended the day 28th showing he still has plenty of work to do to get up to speed with his Australian competition.