AARON Seton cut a delighted figure after kicking off his maiden Repco Bathurst 1000 campaign in style.
Seton this weekend becomes the first third-generation driver to tackle the Bathurst Great Race; his grandfather Barry winning the 1965 edition and father Glenn a three-times runner-up.
Co-driving with Matt Stone Racing’s Jack Le Brocq, it was a smooth start for the 24-year-old.
Having sat out opening practice, Seton recorded a 2:05.0940s to be ninth – and just a hundredth of a second behind Fabian Coulthard – in the afternoon session dedicated to co-drivers.
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That effort represented the fastest lap set by any of the seven rookies yesterday, trumping Matt Payne, Cameron Hill, Declan Fraser, Jaylyn Robotham, Jaxon Evans and Matt Chahda.
“The car felt really good,” Seton told V8 Sleuth.
“The boys at MSR have done a good job and obviously Jack giving his feedback from Practice 1 gave us a good starting point for Practice 2.
“We were fortunate to get some dry running so it was good to see what the car felt like. We’ll see what happens for the rest of the weekend, but everyone is in the same boat so just drive to the conditions.
“Really happy and we’re in a good starting point to keep developing the car.”
Having had his main game debut announced in early July, it was only last week at a Queensland Raceway test that the dream started to feel real.
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“It definitely has been a busy lead-up: I look after all the mechanicals on my Super2 car so it kept me quite busy since Sandown so I haven’t had the chance to think about it,” said Seton, who has no shortage of family support this weekend.
“But I feel like my preparation has been really good and I’ve got a few good people in my corner helping with my training and the mental side of motorsport so I’m just looking forward to putting that all to use this weekend.
“I’m just here to bring my best and just keep learning and hopefully be here in the years to come.”
Two hour-long practice sessions, the first of which starts at 10:10am AEDT today, precedes qualifying this afternoon.
