The Triple Eight Race Engineering driver set a 2:07.2539s in the final minutes to go quickest before beating his own time with a session-topping 2:07.0951s.

James Moffat was second in the Monster Energy-backed #6 Ford Mustang he’ll share with Cameron Waters, a whopping 0.4243s adrift.

The session was a rapid one with first through 14th in the 2:07s bracket.

Despite an early off at Helol Corner that brought out the red flag, Jayden Ojeda was third fastest in the Tyrepower #9 Erebus Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro.

Jordan Boys was impressive in the #96 Brad Jone Racing entry, putting the Pizza Hut car fourth ahead of Mobil 1 Truck Assist Racing’s Fabian Coulthard in the #2 he’ll share with Ryan Wood.

Scott Pye was sixth, Aaron Cameron seventh, Lee Holdsworth eighth, Todd Hazelwood ninth, and Garth Tander the last of the top 10 runners.

Erebus Motorsport’s Todd Hazelwood and Cameron Crick of Matt Stone Racing clocked the equal-most laps with 26.

After mammoth overnight repair efforts, Kai Allen put the #17 Shell V-Power Racing Ford Mustang 12th while Warren Luff was 24th in the #20 Tradie Beer-backed Team 18 Camaro.

Jamie Whincup was only 13th in the #88 Red Bull Ampol Racing Camaro. The team had bemoaned a vibration at the end of Friday, which Broc Feeney said had mostly been resolved.

“I think it’s a bit better this morning,” said Feeney.

“Jamie said there’s still a tiny bit there but I think we’ve made a big improvement. I’ll jump back in later on. Seems like we’ve made a step forward, which is good.

“It felt like bodywork, as a driver. The hard thing was I couldn’t see anything. So just going down the straight it feels like the windows are caving in but that actually wasn’t happening.

“They’ve done a few changes overnight. We’ve made a small tweak just then. We’ll wait to hear back on the feedback but I think we’ve made a gain overnight, which is good.”

An early red flag in Practice 5 🚩

Ojeda finds the tyre barrier at Hell Corner!

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There were dramatic scenes at the start of the session when a Full Course Yellow test procedure nearly went awry.

Dale Wood in the #26 Penrite Racing Ford Mustang nearly rear-ended the slowing #2 of Fabian Coulthard.

Coulthard locked up trying to slow down in time before Wood took to the grass on Conrod Straight to avoid him.

Ojeda’s incident came just eight minutes into the session, which was otherwise incident-free.

Results: Repco Supercars Championship Repco Bathurst 1000, Practice 5 (co-drivers)