Motorsport: SVG crashes in Bathurst practice

Shane van Gisbergen's Red Bull Holden Team will have some work to do. Photo / Mark Horsburgh

Kiwi driver Shane van Gisbergen was one of a number of drivers to feel the bite of the demanding Mt Panorama track at the Bathurst 1000 on Thursday.

In the final practice session of the day the reigning series champ made a mistake as he started the descent down the hill and hit the wall hard in his Red Bull Holden.

The impact was heavy and caused damage to the left side of his car while he had to go to the circuit medical centre for a check-up. He had set the second fastest time of the session when he made his mistake.

Tim Slade had a very similar mistake earlier in the day while youngster Alex Rullo also crashed his Holden.

Erebus Racing's David Reynolds posted the fasted time of the day with a scorching lap of 2:05.09s with a couple of minutes remaining in the final session. Series leader Scott McLaughlin was second fastest while his Shell V-Power Ford teammate Fabian Coulthard was third quickest.

Reynolds was stoked to be on top of the times but admitted his lap could have been even better.

"I gave a little away across the top and did a bad job somewhere but that is what practice is about," he said.

"The car performed very well today. It is good to be on Thursday pole."

Red Bull Racing team boss Mark Dutton was confident the team would repair van Gisbergen's car and that it wouldn't impact the rest of his weekend.

"The most important thing is that the roll cage seems to be fine," Dutton said. "We will go over that with a fine tooth comb but the initial inspection is fine.

"We have to go through the rest of the car but we have got the people to do the job.
"It went in hard and the front upright - we build them pretty strong - and I have never seen one that bad.

"The good thing is Shane is OK."

While the times were fast on Thursday they are expected to drop as teams continue to make gains, which means the lap record will be under threat by the time we get to qualifying late on Friday.