The key shift in epic five-way battle for crucial points position

The fight for 10th position in the 2021 standings has tightened after Saturday's action-packed BP Ultimate Sydney SuperSprint opener.

Brodie Kostecki holds the position after finishing fifth on Saturday; he entered the weekend 12th overall.

The Erebus Motorsport driver traded placed with James Courtney, who was classified 21st after being turned around on the first lap.

In an ironic twist, the two drivers Courtney collided with - Tim Slade and Scott Pye - are two drivers hot on his heels.

Kostecki, Courtney and 12th-placed Slade are covered by just eight points.

Slade has been the big mover in recent rounds; including Saturday's race, Slade has scored 12 top 10 finishes in his last 16 starts. He raced from 16th to ninth on Saturday.

At the start of the spell - at May's OTR SuperSprint - Slade was 20th in the points, and 215 points away from the top 10.

The 35-year-old is now one of the form drivers on the grid, and is just eight points from the top 10 heading in Sunday's action.

Slade is also eighth overall in the fight for the Beaurepaires Sydney Cup, and is 32 points from sixth.

Courtney had held a top 10 spot since June's Merlin Darwin Triple Crown, and was 34 and 44 points ahead of Kostecki and Slade respectively after last Sunday's wet thriller.

However, Kostecki and Slade aren't the only ones looking to demote the 2010 series champion further.

Pye has scored three top 10s in his last four starts, including a stunning charge from 22nd to ninth last Sunday.

The Team 18 driver is 14th overall, just 63 points from 10th-placed Kostecki. Andre Heimgartner, who finished 10th on Saturday, is just one more ahead of Pye.

Todd Hazelwood, meanwhile, is just 35 points behind Pye in 15th. All told, positions 10 through 15 are covered by just 98 points.

“Today definitely didn’t end up the way we were hoping, to state the obvious," Courtney said after Race 26.

"I got a pretty good start and then coming out of Turn 1 I just got hip-checked by Scott. Somewhere in that it sent me around and I really had to scramble to keep it off the wall.

"I had flat-spotted tyres and our race was pretty much wrecked then, so we just sort of managed the car after that."

Cars will return to the track on Sunday for consecutive qualifying sessions from 11:45am AEDT.

Race 27 will commence at 1:30pm, followed by Race 28 at 4:45pm.