Brown stars in Friday co-driver practice

Penrite Racing youngster Will Brown cemented his status as one of Supercars’ rising stars by topping Practice 4 at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.

Brown, who is eager to join the grid full-time in 2020, became the first co-driver to dip into the 2:04s, setting a 2:04.981s with seven minutes to go.

In the #99 Penrite Racing entry with Anton De Pasquale, Brown also set the third fastest lap of the session, with only Michael Caruso splitting those times with a late flyer to finish four hundredths adrift.

“It was awesome. It makes it pretty easy when you’ve got a car that good,” Brown beamed.

“Anton set it up great and I can’t thank the boys enough.

“They don’t tell me anything until I get back here, so really good to see we’re P1.”

Garth Tander and Tony D’Alberto were consistently near the top of the timesheets and ended up third and fourth, driving the #97 Holden and #12 Ford respectively

The session ground to a halt almost before it had got going, with the red flags deployed in the third minute after a bizarre incident for Jake Kostecki.

A forgotten rack-stop left the 19-year-old unable to steer right and he duly found the wall at Griffin’s Bend at low speed.

Kostecki did make it back on track by the midway point of the session after missing Practice 3 yesterday due to accident damage.

Tickford Racing rookie Thomas Randle later found trouble at Forrest’s Elbow, hitting the tyre barriers but avoiding significant damage.

Randle recovered to post the fifth fastest time of the morning.

The Kelly Racing Nissans maintained their promising form as Bryce Fullwood, Alex Rullo and Dean Fiore took sixth through eighth.

All 26 cars featured for the first time since opening practice, with the Holdens of Luke Youlden and Dean Canto back following significant repair jobs after Thursday crashes.

Youlden and Canto made delayed starts to the session before logging valuable laps, finishing 12th and 19th respectively.

“You obviously just don’t want to make any more work for the guys,” Youlden said.

“I can’t apologise enough for yesterday, I’m normally a safe pair of hands I think.

“I did battle a little bit mentally going into it, what am I going to do?

“I can’t be too slow and can’t be too aggressive there either, so I just built up to it.

“There’s plenty more in it obviously, but I just wanted to make sure it came back.”

Besides Kostecki and Randle, Richard Muscat, Ash Walsh and Tander were among those to have off-road excursions, while Caruso stopped in pitlane at one stage with a suspected electrical issue.

The Boost Mobile Racing Commodore of Chris Pither, shared with Richie Stanaway, finished early with a misfire issue.

Practice 5 begins 11:05am local time in the final session before a 40-minute ARMOR ALL Qualifying session from 4pm.