Ford’s Mark Winterbottom has set the fastest time in practice for this weekend’s V8 Supercars round in Darwin.
Winterbottom clocked a best lap time of 1min 9.2649sec in the fourth and final session on Friday in hot conditions at the Hidden Valley Raceway.
With temperatures reaching 32C, the 32-year-old topped the timesheets by 0.1980sec ahead of Mercedes driver Tim Slade and Holden pilot Scott McLaughlin.
The best of the four Nissan drivers was Michael Caruso in fifth.
Holden star Jamie Whincup took it easy in 15th position as he looks to extend his lead at the top of the championship standings while teammate Craig Lowndes was even further down in 23rd.
However, it’s tough to gauge the true speed of the 28-driver field on the abrasive track as teams were preserving their best tyres.
Fresh tyres will be used in qualifying on Saturday morning before the opening race of the weekend – a 60/60 Super Sprint format.
The 120km battle is split into halves and the second kickstarted with a double file rolling restart after a 15-minute break.
Two 100km, 35-lap races will be held on Sunday.