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Phillip Island Supercars: Whincup ends Friday on top

Jamie Whincup will head into Supercars qualifying as the man to beat after comfortably topping the second practice session at Phillip Island.

Jamie Whincup, Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden

Jamie Whincup, Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden

Edge Photographics

Whincup made a lightning fast start to the session, going quickest with a 1m29.985s – the first sub-1m30s lap of the weekend – inside the first five minutes.

It took until the 25-minute mark for anyone to get within a second of Whincup's early time, Erebus pair David Reynolds and Anton De Pasquale popping into second and third respectively with a pair of 1m30.9s laps.

Scott McLaughlin showed up for his first green tyre run with 10 minutes to go, but could only manage a 1m30.648s, more than six-tenths short of Whincup's early lap.

He tried again in the dying minutes, but could only manage to get down to 0.2s off Whincup's pace, leaving the reigning champ on top as Friday's running came to an end.

"We put good tyres on at the start and good tyres on at the end," Whincup said. "We de-tuned the car unfortunately during the session so didn't go as quick at the end."

Behind the top two there was a number of late improvements. Best of them was Fabian Coulthard, who jumped to third right at the flag with a 1m30.299s.

Mark Winterbottom was fourth quickest with a last-lap effort of his own, slotting in ahead of Nick Percat and James Courtney.

Chaz Mostert was seventh, while Shane van Gisbergen, who had been third with a couple of minutes to go, finished eighth.

Will Davison and Scott Pye rounded out the Top 10, while the Erebus pair slipped back to 11th and 12th.

It was another tough session for Nissan, Michael Caruso the best of the Altimas down in 16th.

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