Van Gisbergen tops the final practice run

Shane van Gisbergen has topped the final practice session before racing starts at the Clipsal 500, the Team Tekno Darrell Lea Holden Commodore VF leading factory Ford driver Chaz Mostert and BJR's Fabian Coulthard in the 20 minute session.

With teams concentrating on race setups and long runs in the hot conditions, the pace was well shy of Jamie Whincup's record shattering efforts in qualifying yesterday, with the six-time and defending champion seventh fastest in his Red Bull Racing Australia Holden Commodore VF.

Whincup's teammate Craig Lowndes, Lee Holdsworth and James Moffat filled fourth through sixth places in the session, while Michael Caruso, Jason Bright and Mark Winterbottom occupied positions eight through 10.

There were few incidents in the session, although both David Reynolds and Garth Tander had run-offs. Nick Percat missed most of the session in his new LDM Commodore after a starter motor failure.

Marcos Ambrose continued to struggle in 24th as he tested new stiffer chassis settings in the DJR Team Penske Falcon, while other star drivers further down the field included Scott McLaughlin in 15th, Tander in 17th and his Holden Racing Team teammate James Courtney in 21st.

"The focus this morning (was) just full tank - car was really full and it's the first set of tyres from yesterday," Courtney explained. "Bad tyre quality and full tank to see what the car was like, some pit stop stuff a few little set-up change to try and simulate late in the race when the cars are horrendous.

"I was pretty happy with outright speed when we had to nail it yesterday, [we just practiced for] worst case scenario.

"We had helmet air and cool suit fail so it was full worst case scenario... I had to work harder then."

His HRT #22 starts from fifth and third for today's races.

The first of today's two 125km races gets underway at 1.45pm local time.

Click here for full results from the session.