Mark Winterbottom has topped a dry practice two at Symmons Plains, the second Pepsi Max Falcon to run quickest today in Tasmania.

Winterbottom recorded a 51.3998sec lap late in the session, just faster than former teammate Will Davison in the Erebus Mercedes by 0.05sec, in a session where 0.3sec separated the top 12 at the short circuit.

There were plenty of moments at turn four during the hour-long session – and Craig Lowndes seemed to spend half of it off the road, but ended up third as he and new engineer Grant McPherson looked for more rear support in his Red Bull Commodore.

Winterbottom was relieved to have some track time in the dry before payday tomorrow, which kicks off with a brief 15-minute practice session.

“The car felt really good actually – we’ll see, we’ve got another session tomorrow,” Winterbottom said.

“It was good to do laps in the dry, it’s so sketchy in the wet. This morning – it might look good on TV when cars are sliding – but it’s horrible!”

Winterbottom said the team had gone back to its base setup for the second session and he was happy the FG X was responding logically to changes.

Garth Tander came home fourth, the first of the Walkinshaw Commodores, with Fabian Coulthard, David Reynolds, Shane van Gisbergen – who sat on top of the times for a lot of the session, running soft tyres – James Courtney, Lee Holdsworth and Andre Heimgartner completing the top 10.

The results mean all four Prodrive FG Xs finished within the top 10, a good achievement for rookie Heimgartner who is facing a lot of firsts this weekend, never having raced at Symmons Plains before, driven the FG X before today, or raced on soft tyres!

Click here for full results.

Others to note include Scott McLaughlin in 12th, Jamie Whincup 16th and Scott Pye, standing in for Marcos Ambrose, 20th.

The V8 Supercars return for practice tomorrow morning at 11.20am, ahead of back to back qualifying and two races.