Supercars hasn’t turned a wheel on The Bend’s West Circuit since 2020, and Friday’s opening practice for the AirTouch 500 made it obvious why the layout had been shelved for six years. A new track-limits sensor buried in the exit of Turn 6 produced 76 deleted lap times in the very first 30-minute session alone. Only one of the 26 entries, the Cooper Murray/Lochie Dalton Erebus Camaro, got through clean. Everybody else, championship contenders included, got an early and expensive lesson in exactly how little margin this configuration leaves for a wandering right foot. It’s one thread in a genuinely stacked weekend of global racing, but The Bend’s own subplot is the circuit itself.
A Shorter Lap With a Longer Memory
The West Circuit trims out the International layout’s back section, and what’s left is meaner: a bumpier surface, heavier brake wear, and a slow, tightening right-hander at Turn 6 that’s now electronically policed. Supercars and Motorsport Australia installed a timing loop at the corner’s exit only, since track limits aren’t enforced on entry, where the road actually widens on the driver’s left, so the incentive is to carry speed in and get greedy on the way out. Drivers found that out fast: 35 of Friday’s 76 total strikes came inside the first ten minutes of Practice 1, before most of the field had settled into a rhythm.
Teams got an unusual head start on learning the place. Friday morning’s brake-bedding run was 20 untimed minutes with no setup changes allowed, but it still counted as the field’s first real look at a layout that’s brutal on brakes thanks to the big stop into Turn 6. Jayden Ojeda summed it up afterward: the surface is bumpy, it’s rough on the gearbox, and losing the International section completely changes the character of the corner.
Ojeda’s Day, and a Very Mixed Bag Elsewhere
PremiAir Racing’s rookie made the most of it. Ojeda topped Practice 1 on a 1:17.142s and went quicker again in the final Friday session, a 1:16.4702s that held off Anton De Pasquale’s 1:16.5410s despite De Pasquale radioing in what he described as an exhaust issue that made his Camaro sound like a tractor. It’s Ojeda’s fourth practice-topping session of the season, more than anyone else in the field, an odd stat line for a driver still in his first full year in the category.
Behind them, the final Friday order captured how scrambled this circuit has left the competitive picture: Ryan Wood’s Toyota split the two Chevrolets in third, Brodie Kostecki’s Ford made it three manufacturers inside the top four, and Kai Allen, Chaz Mostert, Bayley Hall, Matt Payne and Will Brown rounded out the top ten. Three sessions in, nobody is leaning on old International-layout data here.
The co-driver-only middle session added its own twist. Team 18 wildcard Bayley Hall, sharing the #15 Supercheap Auto Camaro with Craig Lowndes, beat Todd Hazelwood to the co-drivers’ benchmark by just 0.0249s. For a round that hands out a 500-kilometre trophy and Ryco Enduro Cup points, having an unfamiliar name atop any session is worth filing away before Sunday.
The Near-Miss That Wasn’t a Penalty
The lasting image from Friday will be Chaz Mostert standing on the brakes to avoid Broc Feeney’s Mustang after Triple Eight released Feeney into Mostert’s path in pit lane. Race Control looked at the footage and moved on without further investigation. It capped a rough day for Red Bull Ampol Racing’s number 888 entry, which has had a strange season already, and Feeney’s 23rd in final practice was his worst result of the year.
Elsewhere in pit lane, Scott Pye and Blanchard Racing co-driver Zak Best both drew warnings for pit-exit line breaches under Rule 6.9.2. It’s a small thing on a Friday, but a shorter, busier pit environment tends to make procedural discipline a running theme all weekend, not a one-off.
Reading the Form Ahead of Saturday
Penrite Racing quietly had the sort of day that gets a team tipped as favourite, with Kai Allen and Matt Payne both inside the top ten in final practice on a circuit where consistency across three sessions counts for more than one flashy lap, a sharp contrast to Payne’s title math last time out. Tickford Autosport’s day ran the other way: Cam Waters and Mark Winterbottom slid to 20th after CEO Simon Brookhouse talked up the team’s chances on Thursday, while their own wildcard entry quietly logged the most laps of the day. Brodie Kostecki’s Shell V-Power Ford, meanwhile, was one of only two cars inside the top ten in all three sessions, which matters given he’s chasing a fifth consecutive win at this venue.
What to Watch This Weekend
Saturday brings a driver’s-only session before Boost Mobile Qualifying and the Top Ten Shootout, and Friday’s traffic problems, which Ryan Wood specifically flagged over the radio, suggest qualifying will be as much about timing a gap in traffic as finding raw pace. From there it’s the 500-kilometre race itself on Sunday, before the championship shifts to a far bigger stage next month at Bathurst. Check out our full weekend racing guide for everything else worth watching around the world this weekend.
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