Defending race winners Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes, seeking to make it three-in-a-row at Bathurst, had a quiet session, turning only eighth laps, but that was good enough to place the #888 Vodafone Falcon third on the timesheets.
Like Sprint Gas, the Vodafone squad elected to run early in the session in case rain arrived, but Whincup said the team was well placed for the top-ten shootout, despite not being fastest.
"We thought it was going to rain today so chose to get out early and set some times before the track started to deteriorate," he said. "The rain didn't eventuate but we certainly weren't disadvantaged at all and ended up doing less than half the laps of some other teams.
"If we knew the conditions were going to be fine we would have put on another set of tyres and kept pushing, but third place today, and third-last on the Shootout list tomorrow is still a great spot to be in."
James Courtney was fourth quickest for the SBR in the JELD-WEN Falcon, admitting that 'all indicators point to a crazy race pace', while Garth Tander put Toll HRT fifth on the timesheets as he and Mark Skaife seek to add a Bathurst success to their win at Phillip Island in the opening enduro of the year.
Tander had earlier set the quickest time of the weekend to date in practice, with only the third sub 2min 07secs lap of the mountain by a V8 Supercar.
"We proved our Toll Holden Racing Team Commodore was good, but the '2.06' was in this morning's conditions," he said. "It wasn't quite right this afternoon and the shootout's in the afternoon so we need to go through what we changed between sessions, check it all and make sure we're headed in the right direction. But the shootout's tomorrow and we're in the mix."
Rick Kelly was sixth for the HSV Dealer Team ahead of Will Davison's Jim Beam Racing Falcon, while Paul Dumbrell, Fabian Coulthard and Russell Ingall completed those drivers to make it through to Saturday's top-ten shootout.
Amongst those to miss out on the shootout was the SP Tools Falcon of Shane van Gisbergen, Jack Daniel's Racing Todd Kelly and Fujitsu Racing's Jason Bright.
