ORANGE’S Tim Leahey has cut many hot laps around Mount Panorama in his time as a race driver and it was experience that showed on Friday morning.
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Behind the wheel of the brand-new BMW M3 Competition he will share with Beric Lynton this weekend, Leahey topped the opening practice session for the Bathurst 6 Hour.
And Leahey did it in most impressive fashion as well as he clocked the fastest ever lap recorded by a Production Car at Mount Panorama.
With Leahey behind the wheel, the dark blue BMW stunned the six-hour field with a remarkable two minutes, 24.117 seconds lap within the first 30 minutes of the one-hour session to put the paddock of notice of their performance intent.
Set in cool conditions perfectly suited to turbocharged cars, the lap was 1.3 seconds faster than the qualifying record set last year by the similar-specification Sherrin Racing BMW M4.
It was a good way for Leahey, who placed seventh outright with Lynton in the inaugural Bathurst 6 Hour, to begin his latest campaign.
The BMW ended up several seconds faster than the Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X RS driven to second outright by Jordan Cox.
His 2:26.443 lap was set later in the session on the car’s 15th lap and bumped the Sherrin Racing BMW M4 (2:26.873) to third place.
Internet hero Cox will share the car with his father, Graeme, and car owner Michael King.
With the defending polesitters third in the Sherrin BMW, fourth was the Dylan Thomas / Tim Slade CGR Performance / Hi Tec Oils Mitsubishi while Chaz Mostert hauled the DPO Ford Focus he will share with Nathan Morcom to fifth place (2m28.403).
Craig Baird and Garth Walden were first of the Mercedes-AMG brigade in sixth (2:28.48) just in front of the second CGR Performance Evo driven by Steve Owen and Daniel Stuttered – Owen another to bank his time late in the session.
Steven Johnson drove the second Garth Walden Racing AMG A45 to eighth place, before handing over to co-drivers Marcel Zalloua and Rob Woods to complete the session.
Jeremy Gray and George Miedecke were the first of the Aussie-built cars, their FPV GT-F Falcon banking a solid 2:29.125 to go ninth.
Tenth was a surprise: Brett Howard placing the #69 Holden Commodore SSV Redline to the fastest time in B2 and a surprise position towards the outright pointy-end of the grid thanks to his 2m30.718s.
BMW, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-AMG, Ford / FPV and Holden were all represented in the top-10.