Bathurst 1000: Whincup pips Coulthard in third practice

Sitting seventh with 10 minutes to go, Whincup fired the first real shot of the session when, on used tyres, he flew to the top with a 2m05.566s – 0.9s clear of the field to that point.

The time sparked pitlane into life, much of the field switching to green tyres. Coulthard responded best, knocking Whincup out of P1 with a 2m05.368s with three minutes of the hour remaining.

But Whincup wasn’t done. Having taken on greens himself he responded right at the flag to re-take P1 and complete a Thursday practice sweep for the #88 Triple Eight Commodore with a 2m05.294s.

That meant Coulthard finished the session second, 0.07s behind Whincup, while Chaz Mostert made a last-second improvement of his own on good rubber to wind up third with a 2m05.706s.

Scott McLaughlin shook out in fourth, having improved on his final run to a 2m05.821s, ahead of a gaggle of Commodores that included Jason Bright, Garth Tander, Tim Slade, Will Davison, Shane van Gisbergen, and James Courtney.

While van Gisbergen ended up in a decent spot, he had a slow start to the session. Brake issued meant he barely turned a lap until the half-way point, although he jumped straight into the mid-7s when he did emerge from the garage for a proper crack, and wound up the last of the drivers under the 2m06s mark.

While Mostert was on the money, both Mark Winterbottom and Cam Waters missed out on spots in the Top 10, despite Winterbottom finding a big gain on his final run.

Craig Lowndes had a better run, finishing up 14th after struggling for pace through the first two sessions earlier today.

Only 26 cars took part in the session, the #34 Volvo missing out on any running after James Golding tagged the wall in the second session.