He may not yet be leading the points table in 2008, but reigning V8 Supercar champion Garth Tander marked himself out as the man to beat once again as a day of practice concluded at Western Australia's Barbagallo circuit.
The Toll Holden Racing Team pilot - who has swept each of the last two V8 events this season - moved to the head of the timesheets in the third and final session, clocking 56.5381secs to edge a close-run battle with Hamilton polesitter Steven Richards. Just 0.0377secs split Holden from Ford at the end of the day.
“Today's been a good start and I'm very happy with how things went," Tander reported, "We learnt a lot today and improved the car all the way through the session. Like Mark, we had pretty good speed on used tyres and, while there's no doubt qualifying is important, having tyre life and making the car live is even more critical – especially here.”
Team Vodafone's Craig Lowndes took third spot in what proved to be the fastest session of the three during the day, with Supercheap's Russell Ingall and Richards' FPR team-mate Mark Winterbottom completing the top five.
“It is a nice way to start the weekend,” Lowndes admitted, “The car was 80 per cent there when first hit the track, so we spent most of the session searching for a good balanced car for tomorrow's race. We'll look at data tonight and make a few more changes, but the really important thing we need to be mindful of is the weather conditions, because that will determine the direction we take in setting the car up for qualifying.”
Vodafone team-mate Jamie Whincup was back on track after having to sit out the three races in Hamilton after a hefty qualifying crash. The erstwhile points leader clocked the tenth best time of the final session.
