Van Gisbergen streets ahead

An extraordinary final lap has shot Shane van Gisbergen clearly to the top of the order in final practice for this weekend's NRMA Sydney 500.

The VIP Pet Foods Holden Commodore VF driver set a best time of 1 min 27.6311 sec on the concrete-lined Sydney Olympic Park circuit, more than 0.4 sec ahead of Scott Pye's Wilson Security Ford Falcon FG II.

David Reynolds (Bottle-O Ford), Scott McLaughlin (Valvoline Volvo S60) and champion elect Jamie Whincup (Red Bull Racing Australia Commodore) rounded out the top five.

The 20 minute session was distilled to a final 3 min 30 sec shootout after the red flag came out to remove Lee Holdsworth's Erebus Motorsport V8 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, which hit the wall in turn five after what appeared to be some form of steering of suspension failure.

The race is now on for the car to be repaired in time for qualifying, which starts at 11.15am.

Nissan driver Todd Kelly nosed into the tyres late in the session, and the Valvoline GRM team is repairing Scott McLaughlin's Volvo after a tap of the wall. Dale Wood's Commodore also has damage to the rear right quarter.

Wildcard Marcos Ambrose was 26th and slowest in the field in his Xbox Falcon, albeit still faster than his best time yesterday. He set a fastest time of 1 min 29.5591 sec.

Two 125km races will be conducted this afternoon, with a 250km mini marathon tomorrow.