Late rain failed to halt Shane van Gisbergen as he took race victory in the opening 250km leg into the night at Sydney Motorsport Park, edging towards a second Repco Supercars Championship.
It was a Red Bull Ampol Racing 1-2 as teammate Jamie Whincup followed van Gisbergen across the line, while long-time leader Cam Waters completed the podium in his Tickford Racing Ford Mustang.
Sydney pacesetter Anton De Pasquale continued his time at the top of the sheets in Practice 2 to set a 1m 29.8516s in his Shell V-Power Racing Ford Mustang.
Erebus Motorsport’s Will Brown was only 0.1020s behind in second, with Shane van Gisbergen, Tim Slade and Brodie Kostecki rounding out the top five.
Qualifying again had De Pasquale on top, clocking a 1m 29.2430s to lead van Gisbergen by 0.5011s heading into the Top 10 Shootout.
Jamie Whincup, Will Davison, Kostecki, Nick Percat, Scott Pye, Jack Le Brocq, Todd Hazelwood and Waters also progressed into the Shootout.
Conditions proved tough for the one-lap dash and it was De Pasquale, who mastered the conditions to set a 1m 30.4532s to edge Whincup to the tune of 0.2116s.
Pye lost the most ground in the Shootout dropping from sixth to 10th, while Hazelwood improved to sixth.
Van Gisbergen and teammate Whincup started on the super softs, but lost this advantage when an engine in Macauley Jones’ Coca Cola Holden Commodore at Turn 8 forced an early safety car on lap 5.
Already 5s up the road, this evaporated quickly as all drivers pitted and van Gisbergen was forced to stack behind Whincup, who had won the start.
Once the race restarted, Pye was second behind Whincup, De Pasquale and Goddard, who was another to start on super softs.
Waters was the first to fit super softs in eighth and took the lead by lap 12 as teammate Le Brocq followed through on Whincup a lap later. Brown was another to follow the same strategy and demoted Whincup a further position as the trio began to streak away.
Le Brocq was overtaken late in his stint by Brown, who then began eating into Waters’ advantage until the next stage of pit stops.
Brown demonstrated the capabilities of the super soft tyre, enjoying a 29-lap stint sparking a renewed strategy from Red Bull Ampol Racing to re-fit the six-lap old set from the race start.
Whincup and van Gisbergen were placed deep in the 10, with Waters still leading on hard tyres with 15 laps to go.
Le Brocq began to drop position as Kostecki on the super soft began to close on teammate Brown, who in turn was bridging the gap to leader Waters.
Rain started to fall during the closing stages and this was when the Red Bull Ampol Racing duo shone, with the pair scything past Kostecki, Brown and Waters to take a 1-2.
So, it was van Gisbergen from Whincup, Waters, De Pasquale, Chaz Mostert, Pye, Brown, Kostecki, Davison and Nick Percat.
A 5s penalty dropped Percat a position after an altercation with Brown.
Tomorrow’s Supercars action begins at 10:50am AEDT with Qualifying for Race 30.