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Golding sweeps Friday sessions at Hidden Valley
JAMES GOLDING has completed a practice sweep at the Merlin Darwin Triple Crown, topping practice two on Friday afternoon to complete a near perfect start to the S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championships first visit to the Top End.
In a warmer session compared to practice one, Golding’s 1m04.0553s best saw the Team Valvoline GRM car top the charts for the second time on Friday.
RESULTS: Practice 2
He was 0.19s faster than teammate Aaron Cameron while Cooper Webster was a late improver and jumped to third in his Versa Motorsport entry.
He bumped Tim Macrow out of the top three late in the session by 0.01 seconds, though the latter matched his practice one time in the faster morning session.
Blake Purdie was fifth in the Nippy’s car, the top five split by just 0.23 seconds in a competitive battle.
Nathan Herne was sixth and championship leader Joey Mawson seventh, though the Team BRM entry was less than 0.5 seconds off the pace.
Having finished second in practice one, Kaleb Ngatoa was eighth but just 0.5 seconds slower than Golding in front.
The Kiwi missed much of the late running in the session after his car came to a stop at turn five, having clipped a kerb at turn four and apparently braking a suspension component – causing him to run off the road with his left front off the ground.
John Martin, Jordan Boys, Sebastien Amadio and Tim Berryman completed the 12 runners.
The S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship returns to the track on Saturday morning at 8:30am, with race one set for 11:00am local time.
Both sessions will be shown live on Fox Sports and Kayo.