Slade Tops Opener
Tim Slade’s hopes of ending his relationship with Erebus Motorsport, the Stone brothers and long-time patron James Rosenberg on a high have started positively with fastest time in the opening practice session for the Sydney NRM Motoring & Services 500.
In the 30-minute session devoted to rookies and the bottom 50 per cent, Slade ripped around the 3.42km concrete-lined Sydney Olympic Park street circuit in his Mercedes-Benz AMG E63 with a time of 1min29.485.
He led championship rookie Scott McLaughlin in his GRM Fujitsu Holden Commodore VF (1min29.511), James Moffat’s Norton Nissan Altima (1min29.892), Erebus teammate Lee Holdsworth in the Irwin Benz (1min29.895) and Nissan’s Todd Kelly (1min29.895).
Holden Racing Team debutante Nick Percat was 10th fastest, while Russell Ingall was only 14th as he started his last V8 Supercars event as a full-time driver in the Championship.
“We have good tyre quality for practice because of the long distance races we haven’t finished,” said Slade. “But I guess it’s a good sign to be there rather than running new tyres and being back a few.
“It’s early days, the track is still pretty green and dirty so we’ll wait and see where we are at when everyone else is out there.”
Slade swaps to Walkinshaw Racing in 2014 to campaign the Supercheap Auto Racing Commodore being vacated by Ingall. It means the end of a V8 Supercars association with Rosenberg that stretches back to 2009 and a relationship with Stone Brothers Racing – which transformed into Erebus in 2013 – that began in 2010.
“I want to go out on a high every weekend, but we have had a pretty rough trot from Sandown onwards, so it would be nice purely just to get a result and secondly because it’s the last one with the team and all the guys I have worked for the last few years, so it would be nice to go out with a good result.”
It’s been a tough start to the day for Dick Johnson Racing, Chaz Mostert not recording a time in the session, suffering a power steering failure. Teammate Tim Blanchard caused a red flag, stopping on-track at the turn nine run-off and is believed to have had electrical issues.
“It’s a long day ahead for DJR,” Mostert said.
The second practice session, open for all drivers, begins at 11.55am local time. Click here for full results from Practice Part One.
