DYLAN O’KEEFFE has topped a typically tight day of practice as the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Australia Championship launched into the third round of the 2024 season in Darwin.

In fact, the margins weren’t just tight – they were tiny with just fractions of a second covering the leading runners and for that matter, the entire grid.

O’Keeffe, the 2018 Darwin winner, topped the day with a 1m06.8686s flyer late in the second practice session today to end Friday just 0.0326 seconds faster than Taupo winner David Russell.

Russell, aboard his TekworkX Motorsport entry, had topped practice one and ended the day second overall on the combined times from both sessions.

In SP Tools Pro-Am, Matt Belford topped practice one before title leader Adrian Flack went quicker again in the second session to end the day on top.

Both sessions were held in typically scorching Darwin conditions with the ambient temperature 31 degrees and the track cooking at more than 45.

The day produced typically tight margins between the field with third-placed Harri Jones and David Wall all covered by just 0.05 seconds.

Despite that, the quickest time of the day was only 0.3 seconds behind Dale Wood’s existing Hidden Valley qualifying record, set at the venue last year, which bodes well for TAG Heuer qualifying tomorrow morning.

Behind O’Keeffe, Russell, Jones and the returning David Wall – making his first start of the year – Jackson Walls ended his Friday in fifth position with Bayley Hall sixth, both drivers setting their quickest times in the second of two 30-minute sessions.

Marco Giltrap, Dale Wood, Marcos Flack and Glen Wood completed the top-10 on combined times, with the top-10 covered by 0.37 seconds.

A majority of the field ran new tyres in practice in a bid to prepare for qualifying tomorrow, the new format this year – one that requires drivers to set two competitive lap times to set the grid for the first two races of the weekend – adding further intensity to proceedings.

Adrian Flack topped the SP Tools Pro-Am runners, putting his Agas National / EBM car 15th outright and on top of his class.

Flack’s best of 1m07.6696s was 0.3 seconds quicker than nearest rival Matt Belford, but impressively only 0.80s slower than the outright quickest time set by O’Keeffe.

Rodney Jane was third in Pro-Am, ahead of Matt Slavin and Marc Cini.

Saturday’s action commences with Qualifying at 10:25am local time for the TAG Heuer Pole award, followed by Race one at 1:55pm.

Both sessions will be shown live on Fox Sports 506 and Kayo Sports, with Race 1 also shown on Channel 7.