Randle keeps Tickford on top in Surfers Paradise

Thomas Randle has kept Tickford Racing on top at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500, with Cam Waters and Matt Payne forming a Ford top three in a busy Practice 2.

Time and again, Randle was the benchmark in a fast session, with the Castrol Mustang marginally ahead of Waters and Payne. Such was Randle's pace, that he bested Waters' Gen3 lap from last year's event.

After 40 minutes, Randle, Waters and Penrite Racing driver Payne were covered by 0.0842s, with the Tickford teammates split by 0.0290s.

Broc Feeney was first Chevrolet home in fourth, 0.2782s off the pace, with Bathurst winner Brodie Kostecki, championship leader Will Brown, Andre Heimgartner, James Courtney, Anton De Pasquale and Chaz Mostert rounding out the top 10.

"It's still only practice, being fastest today is a nice way to go to sleep tonight but that means really nothing," said Randle.

"The cars have rolled out really fast and I just got so many kerb strikes in the first practice, so it was hard to really show our true pace.

"In that session they turned off one of the sensors at the beach chicane and hopefully they leave it like that, I think everyone would have had way less then.

"The car rolled out really strong, we've just been tuning it a little bit across the two sessions, then we finally put some greens on it and it was really, really good."

Before the session, drivers were advised that the Turn 2 sensor loop would remain off for the rest of the weekend, with the Turn 9 deactivated for Practice 2 in a trial.

Drivers were testing the limits early, and in a frantic start to the session, Brown set a 1:11.9583s, which was immediately unseated by Waters' 1:11.6069s.

Waters carried on and clocked a 1:11.1652s, with Tim Slade (1:11.3801s), Kostecki (1:11.2801s) and Brown (1:11.2037s) all reaching second position. Mostert jumped to third with a 1:11.2283s, with Courtney first moving up with a 1:11.2147s, before improving to second with a 1:11.1859s.

Brown returned and went fastest of all with a 1:11.0568s, before Waters consolidated his speed with the first 1:10s lap of the day, a 1:10.9423s.

Waters was set to improve on his own time, only to abort his flyer after Payne nudged the tyre barriers at the final corner. Payne recovered to pit lane, with Waters also coming in.

With the track clear, Kostecki went fastest in the first sector and closed out with a 1:10.6696s, which proved 0.2727s faster than Waters' best. Randle and Mostert, meanwhile, jumped Waters, but still had 0.26s to find on the reigning champion.

Randle proved his speed was no fluke and jumped ahead of Kostecki with a 1:10.5305s, before Brown improved from sixth to third with a 1:10.7535s. It helped form a top 10 of Randle, Kostecki, Brown, Mostert, Waters, De Pasquale, Mark Winterbottom, Courtney, Richie Stanaway and David Reynolds at the halfway mark of the session.

Waters powered in a 1:10.4800s with 17 minutes left to put 0.0505s on Randle, with Heimgartner jumping from 14th to sixth with a 1:10.9863s. Randle returned, setting a near identical time to his previous best to consolidate second, before going fastest of all with a 1:10.4498s.

In a busy final run to the chequered flag, Feeney tripped over the Turn 10 kerbs at the beach chicane as cars fought through traffic. Randle went fastest in the first sector, and set a 1:10.4789s, which would have been good enough for second.

As Feeney recovered to fourth, after Payne jumped to third, Randle improved yet again in the first sector, reset the middle sector best, and closed out with a 1:10.3766s to stamp his authority on the field. Waters improved his own time to a 1:10.4056s, with Payne failing to close out what loomed to be the best lap of the day after losing time in the final sector.

Stanaway ended up 13th after running off Turn 11, with Jaxon Evans again 24th and last following his issues in the earlier session.

On track action at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 continues on Saturday with Boost Mobile Qualifying at 11:00am local time/12:00pm AEDT. Tickets for the event are on sale now.