Pye: Results a great way to thank team

Scott Pye is hoping his good pace continues at the Castrol EDGE Gold Coast 600 to repay his team for their efforts in the past months.

Pye suffered two huge accidents across the last three rounds -at Sydney Motorsport Park and then Bathurst -requiring his crew to throw all hands on deck and rebuild the Wilson Security Racing Falcon twice.

Now he's topped the practice times, the 23-year old hopes the form will carry through for point-scoring Saturday and Sunday.

"Really happy," he said after jumping from the car afterpractice one.

"First of all, I think it's a credit to the team. After Bathurst the car was really damaged -as bad as Eastern Creek almost.They worked some pretty big nights, along with a lot of guys in pit lane - but to roll out and be p1 is great for them.

"It's my way of saying [and] a great way to thank the guys."

As always, Pye shied away from saying too much too soon.

"It's very early in the weekend. So practice one, it's always nice to be quick but, like I said, it's such a long way to go.

"We try and keep the car straight, keep improving it through the last sessions today and if we can be somewhere in the 10 tomorrow and Sunday that'd be really good ... we're pretty pleased."

A number of drivers were pinged for kerb over-use in the first session of the weekend, and Pye explained they were just looking for the limits through the beach chicane, which this year has newly installed tyre bundles to prevent 'hopping'.

"To be honest, I didn't find that much time through the back chicane. But you've just got to be careful with how much of the tyres you take because that second bundle especially, if you ever hit that, you're going to do a lot of damage ... I think that first session is the same for everyone, they're just trying to push the limits of the circuit and press on.

"Certainly at the end of that run it looked like everyone took a second set of tyres -I'm sure no one would've taken a set of greens -but looks like they took a second set of tyres and did a lap."

He believed we would see more of it as the weekend stretches on.

"Later on today and tomorrow is when you'll see them start to push them for sure. Everyone's in the same boat at the moment, just trying to find the limit."

Pye and co-driver Ash Walsh put in a stellar job at Sandown, finishing fifth behind Red Bull and HRT, the Holden heavyweights, and the #16 was considered a dark horse at Bathurst.

The Wilson Security Falcon finished ahead of Craig Lowndes and Michael Caruso in that first 30-minute run.

Walsh will be behind the wheel at 11.55am local time, for the second practice session of the day, which is limited to co-drivers.