Team 18 leaves the opening day of the Darwin Triple Crown with plenty of confidence despite mixed fortunes in Race 17, after both Camaros displayed strong pace across practice, qualifying and the opening sprint race

In contrast to Darwin’s usual hot and humid conditions, teams were greeted by cooler and overcast weather for the opening day, which featured a packed schedule of practice, qualifying and a 35-lap sprint race.

The pace of the field was immediately evident in the sole 45-minute practice session, with just 0.311 seconds covering the top 13 drivers. Anton De Pasquale and David Reynolds both finished inside the top 10, with De Pasquale eighth and Reynolds 10th.

Both Team 18 Camaros progrssed through to the final qualifying segment. Reynolds narrowly advanced from Q1 before securing eighth on the grid, while De Pasquale delivered a superb lap to qualify second, missing pole position by just two hundredths of a second.

The strong qualifying performance placed Team 18 among only three teams to put both cars into the final qualifying segment and continued the pace shown throughout practice.

De Pasquale made a good launch from the front row in Race 17 and was level with polesitter Kostecki into Turn 1 before Kostecki held the inside line and Waters followed through, dropping the DEWALT Camaro to third.

The team rolled the dice on strategy by bringing De Pasquale into pit lane as the first of the leading runners to complete his compulsory tyre stop, before Reynolds stopped a couple of laps later from ninth position.

As the race unfolded, De Pasquale’s tyre advantage began to fade against rivals who stopped later. Despite a determined defence, he eventually slipped behind Allen, Payne and Brown before taking the chequered flag in sixth position.

Reynolds spent much of the race running inside the top 10 and looked on course for a solid result, sitting ninth with five laps remaining. However, contact from Le Brocq at Turn 6 spun the Snowy River Racing Camaro around and dropped Reynolds to the rear of the field. He eventually finished 23rd, while Le Brocq was later handed a 15-second post-race penalty for causing the incident.

While the final results did not reflect the pace shown by either Team 18 Camaro, the team leaves Friday encouraged by its speed and confident ahead of Saturday’s 200km race.

The second day of the Darwin Triple Crown will feature qualifying from 10:40am ACST, followed by the Top Ten Shootout at 11:35am before the 200km Race 18 gets underway at 3:20pm. All the action can be watched live on Fox Sports and Kayo.