FAST New Zealander Brock Gilchrist has charged to the top of the times following a competitive and clean day of practice for Round 3 of the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Australia Series at the NTI Townsville 500 in Queensland. 

Taking advantage of a new-tyre run at the end of the second, 25-minute practice session of the day, Gilchrist’s 1m14.4746s flyer not only topped the charts in the session, but did so overall in a fast Friday that saw both sessions run without interruption.

Click here to view results from qualifying at the NTI Townsville 500. 

The pair of practice sessions were staged in uncharacteristically cloudy conditions in North Queensland with lower ambient and track conditions allowing for drivers to have several shots at qualifying simulation late in the second session.

Gilchrist, who sits second in the championship following the first two rounds and was a race winner last-time out at The Bend, headed Scott Taylor Motorsport’s Nash Morris on combined times, with the Flash having topped the opening session earlier on Friday.

The pair were split by two-tenths of a second with series leader Oscar Targett third overall in his EBM machine.

Ayrton Hodson was fourth aboard his McElrea Racing entry on his street circuit debut while teammate Caleb Sumich was fifth in the combined rankings.

Jake Santalucia was sixth for Sonic Motor Racing, narrowly edging out Clay Osborne and Aron Shields’ DNA Autosport entry.

Conor Somers and TekworkX driver Hamish Fitzsimmons completed the top-10 on combined practice times on Friday, the 10 covered by exactly one second.

Brett Boulton led the way in the Pro-Am ranks, heading class leader Daniel Stutterd by 0.6 seconds, with Marc Cini third – the Victorian having topped the opening session aboard his Hallmarc Property Group entry.

Brad Carr was a stout 14th outright aboard his Class-B leading entry with Jacque Jarjo second in class.

After a wild round at The Bend last time out, Friday in Townsville was free of major incident as the field set about learning the tricky 2.87km street circuit.

Just four drivers of the 25 entered have competed previously on the Reid Park streets making track time a premium as the field looks towards qualifying and the opening race on Saturday.

Qualifying – at 8:05am – and Race 1, which starts at 10:50am will both be live on Fox Sports 506 and Kayo Sports tomorrow.