Garth Tander proved to be the quickest title contender as practice kicked off for the final round of the V8 Supercar Championship season at Phillip Island.
The Toll HSV Dealer Team driver posted a best time of 1m 34.16s despite running on old rubber at the wheel of his Holden Commodore which left him second on the timesheets behind Mark Winterbottom, the Ford man not amongst those still in contention for the championship crown.
Of Tander's rivals, Craig Lowndes was the closest challenger in sixth place, with team-mate Rick Kelly eighth and current points leader Jamie Whincup down in ninth.
The car was really good when I rolled it out, he said. We didn't really change too much throughout the session, just fine-tuned it the conditions. I don't think the track was that flash at the start of the session, and it really looked like it was rubbering in as the session went on, so it will be interesting to see what the track is like tomorrow.
Our car was really good throughout the session. I made a mistake on my flyer on my better set of tyres, which probably cost me a bit of time. But I am very happy with the car and the set up, and we should be able to extract a bit more time out of it tomorrow. The first goal is to get eight more points than Jamie does, and the second goal is to make sure we get more points than Craig.
We want to qualify well, and traditionally we have done that here, and if we can do that and have a strong first race, we will see what happens after that.
Defending champion Kelly admitted he could have gone quicker on his fast lap had it not been for traffic although he said he was still in good shape for the weekend even though he is the rank outsider to take a second straight title.
Here at Phillip Island the track goes a little greasy in the middle of the day, which is the bulk of the practice session, he said. I think our car is in a good spot. We struggled a little bit with traffic and timing, so I think we are looking all right.
