McLaughlin shades van Gisbergen in Practice 2

A late Scott McLaughlin lap edged out Shane van Gisbergen in second practice for the Supercars season opener in Adelaide.

McLaughlin turned a 1:20.3567s after the chequered flag had been shown to finish on top, while 2017 champion Jamie Whincup had to settle for 16th after a mistake on his green-tyre run.   

Van Gisbergen led the way for most of the session with a 1:20.3896s set early.

That had the Red Bull Holden Racing Team driver nearly half-a-second clear at the halfway mark, when the session was red-flagged after Cameron Waters crashed.

Waters ran wide into Turn 8 and made left-rear contact with the outside wall.

His brand-new Tickford Racing Falcon was then fired towards the inside wall on the run towards Turn 9, doing most of the damage to the front-right corner.

now so it’s purely about tuning our chassis, which makes the sessions easier.

“I’d like to think we can find another three tenths in that final sector, it’s not nice coming back into the parklands.

"It’s too loose and it’s difficult to stop at the final one.”

Mark Winterbottom, Fabian Coulthard, Garth Tander and Will Davison with the new 23Red Racing completed the top 10, in an even split between the Falcon and new ZB Commodore.

Nissan trio Michael Caruso, Andre Heimgartner and Rick Kelly were 11th, 12th and 13th, while Craig Lowndes was the second of the Triple Eight drivers in 15th.

That put Lowndes one spot ahead of Whincup, who was half-a-tenth off top spot through two sectors on his penultimate flying lap before locking up and running wide at the final corner.

The Practice 1 pacesetter was one of 19 drivers, down to Waters, to lap within a second of the fastest time.

Garry Rogers Motorsport’s James Golding was the best of the rookies in 18th, while Tim Blanchard’s BJR Commodore shed a right-rear wheel on his way to rounding out the order.

ARMOR ALL Qualifying for the first race of the 2018 season starts at 3:50pm this afternoon.