Team 18's David Reynolds has made a statement ahead of the Tasmania Supersprint, setting the two fastest laps during Supercars practice.
The 39-year-old has failed to podium so far this season but looked rapid at Symmons Plains on Friday, outpacing his nearest rival James Golding by more than a 10th of a second.
Reynolds waited until the last few minutes of the session, with plenty of rubber laid down on the 2.4km circuit, to set a benchmark hot lap of 51.137 seconds on fresh tyres.
This despite overcoming an engine misfiring issue early on.
Reynolds' teammate Mark Winterbottom finished 0.18 of a second off the pace in fifth, capping a strong first outing for seventh-placed Team 18 (1930 pts).
"This is the first round in a long time both cars have been really quick, so everyone's done a really good job to get them to here," Reynolds said after practice.
"Everyone's ecstatic, its an awesome start to the weekend."
Camaros dominated the session, with Cam Waters in 10th fastest the sole Mustang representative in the top 12.
It isn't panic stations just yet at championship leaders Triple Eight (3309 pts), but they will be hoping to improve on their modest start to proceedings. Will Brown finished ninth, two thousandths of a second behind Triple Eight teammate Broc Feeney.
The pair have struggled in recent weeks to maintain their dominance over the competition from earlier in the season.
Brown (1746 pts) has seen his lead over Chaz Mostert (1641 pts) at the top of the standings slip to 105 points after boasting a 274-point gap over the Walkinshaw Andretti United man following his double race win in Darwin in June.
Mostert, Supercars' in-form driver, finished 14th-fastest, having been unable to put down a quick lap on fresh tyres late in the session.
Blanchard Racing veteran James Courtney was 0.323 seconds off the pace after sitting out the majority of the session due to a power steering failure.
Qualifying for race 17 of the season gets underway at 1pm local time on Saturday before the first of two 100km races on the Apple Isle begins at 4.10pm.
