Casey Stoner impresses in his first V8 Supercars practice sessions

Double MotoGP champion Casey Stoner officially started his 2013 V8 Supercars campaign by finishing ninth fastest out of 30 drivers in his first ever practice session in Australia.

The 27-year-old Red Bull Racing Australia driver made an impressive start to the session after having driven a V8 Supercar around a full track just twice before this morning. It didn’t take long for him to get on pace, clocking a best time of 1.24.89 and out-pacing many drivers with consistent V8 Supercars experience.

“It was a very good run out of the box. He was just 1.2 seconds off the quickest guys out there and he has never been to the circuit before or raced within the confines of walls and the track was very green. We’re pretty happy with that,” team owner Roland Dane was quoted as saying by Crash.net.

In the second practice of the day, Stoner fared even better, cutting 1.5s from his best time to move up the order from ninth (+1.24s) to eighth (+0.69s) out of 30 drivers.

“There’s all sorts of things to contend with, but in general it’s been a lot of fun today. It was a little bit different to begin with, going from a bike to a car, but you learn to run with it – that’s the edge of the track and that’s all you’ve got. But in general it wasn’t as daunting as I thought it would be, it’s a bit more easy to deal with,” Stoner said.