PERCAT SETS THE PACE DURING PRACTICE IN MELBOURNE

Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport V8 Supercars driver Nick Percat behind the wheel during practice at the Australian Kart Championship. (Pic: Coopers Photography)

Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport V8 Supercars driver Nick Percat has shown that he will be a serious contender during the opening round of the 2015 Australian Kart Championship presented by Jayco and Castrol EDGE in Melbourne this weekend.

The 26 year-old was on the pace all throughout today’s four practice sessions taking it up to the frontrunners in the highly-competitive KZ2 class.

After setting the pace in the opening 20-minute stint, he then carded the fourth and second fastest times in practice two and three before returning to the top of the timesheets in the final session.

“It feels awesome to be so competitive in my first competitive event in karting in more than a decade,” said Percat.

“Everything ran very smoothly today but it is far from easy out there. Every lap you have to be on the edge, if you drop a tenth of a second it can lose five or six spots on the timesheets.

“The competition is extremely tough and the calibre of drivers is very high. I’m really looking forward to the challenges that the weekend will present.

In KA Junior, Joshua Smith set the fastest time of the day narrowly ahead of Jordyn Sinni while South Australian Blake Purdie fired the first shot in the KA12 class to snare the fastest time by 0.02 seconds ahead of Tex Starr-McKoy.

FA Kart driver James Sera led the KA1 field while ex-dirt karter Joel Heinrich posted the fastest time in KA TaG.

Oscar Piastri was fastest in the KF3 class as was Liam McLellan aboard his JC Kart in KF2 and Bradley Jenner in X30.

Tomorrow’s action will see qualifying and a pair of heat races for each of the eight Championship classes ahead of Sunday’s final heat and finals.

All of the results can be viewed live on www.race-monitor.com or post race on Karting Australia’s results system here.

Tomorrow evening will see the opening preview show of 2015 streamed on karting.net.au ahead of Sunday’s live streaming of the racing.