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Fast Friday for O’Keeffe in Sydney
Wet or dry, it didn’t matter to Dylan O’Keeffe, who swept Friday’s Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series practice running for Race Sydney.
After topping the opening session, the Lynk & Co pilot topped Practice 2 from Tony D’Alberto, the pair trading fastest times in the closing minutes of the session.
The 30-minute Practice 2 took place on a largely dry track, in contrast to the wet morning session.
Tom Oliphant set the early benchmark with a 1m36.4296s, the time standing until the final flurry of laps.
The session was briefly red-flagged during its closing stages before resuming with four minutes to go, with the bulk of the field returning to the track for a final hitout.
Oliphant and Jordan Cox were the exceptions, watching on from the pits as others bettered their times.
O’Keeffe went to the top on his penultimate lap before being immediately undercut by D’Alberto, but hit back with a 1m35.7464s final run to end the session 0.0882s clear.
Oliphant’s time held up for third ahead of teammate and title contender Josh Buchan, with Aaron Cameron rounding out the top five after an eventful session.
It began with a slide through the grass at Turn 4 on his first flying lap, before he and points leader Zac Soutar tripped over each other at the Turn 8 hairpin on his second.
The #18 Peugeot then began trailing smoke just past the halfway point, but returned to the track in the final minutes with a clean bill of health.
The Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series next hits the track at 11:10am AEDT on Saturday morning for two-part qualifying, which will set the grid for Race 1 at 2:50pm.