Team 18 kicked off the Perth Super440 with a strong showing from DEWALT Racing’s Anton De Pasquale, who finished second fastest in Friday’s final practice session at Carco Raceway.

De Pasquale was on the pace from the outset, placing fourth in Practice 1 on used tyres before bolting on a fresh set and clocking a 54.47s lap in Practice 2, just 0.08s shy of pacesetter Matthew Payne.

In contrast, David Reynolds endured a more challenging start to the weekend in the TRADIE Energy Racing Camaro.

A trip through the Turn 7 sand trap in Practice 1 saw him finish 17th, and wound up 21st with a best time of 55.02s after chasing further improvements in Practice 2.

The team now turns its focus to Saturday’s dual knockout qualifying from 9:45am local time, followed by two 50-lap races. Race 14 starts at 12:55pm and Race 15 at 4:10pm. Catch all the action live on Fox Sports and Kayo.

RESULTS & QUOTES

David Reynolds, driver #20 TRADIE Energy Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Practice 1: 17th
Practice 2: 21st

“We rolled out and fairly well struggled, like the car was very hard to drive. It wasn’t making sense, It was hard to read, hard to feel, and I put it in the sand halfway through, which is not good. Then we came in and Krusty put a change in the car which made a lot of sense.

“Then I went out and did my best lap in session one, and that felt really nice. It gave us a good direction for Practice 2.

“We rolled out with some changes in the front end and it didn’t really respond, so we tried to take them out, and we did a bit of a race run.

We squashed the whole session and by the end of it we put the tyres on and we were sort nowhere.

“Anton seems very fast. We can learn from his car, but we’ll sit down and look at the data and see how we can go faster tomorrow.”

Anton De Pasquale, driver #18 DEWALT Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Practice 1: 4th
Practice 2: 2nd

“Day one done here in Perth. Really good day for us. We’re in the top five or so in both practice sessions, ended up second, which is really good.

“The DEWALT Chevy rolled out of the truck solid. We’ve still got a few things to work towards, which we’ll do over the weekend and hopefully we can race at the front.”