The pole-sitting car of Jamie Whincup and Paul Dumbrell finished 13th after receiving a drive-through penalty for a pit stop infringement.

[2] The following cars carried a retro livery during the event: A number of teams also dressed their members in period clothing.

Nissan Motorsport were unconcerned by the change, with team owner and driver Todd Kelly saying: "We have gone ahead in leaps and bounds in economy since the four stops were implemented – everyone has...If we were worried about it we would have put something up to the commission, which we haven’t done.

[13] An investigation by the FIA found that the elastic straps could cause the seat belts to slip in a frontal impact, increasing the risk of injury to the driver.

The session was mostly free of incidents, though James Moffat had to return to the pit garage with a loose driver's window.

Ashley Walsh stopped on the track with an electrical problem with five minutes remaining, causing a red flag.

Mostert set the fastest lap time, putting his co-driver Owen on pole position for the first of the qualifying races.

[21] Dumbrell quickly built a lead over Owen, with Youlden engaged in a close battle with Luff for third place.

On lap 10, Chris van der Drift made a mistake at Turn 7 and hit the kerb, which punctured a tyre and damaged the suspension.

Dumbrell took victory by 7.6 seconds over Owen, while Youlden was passed by both Luff and Jonathon Webb on the penultimate lap.

Mostert recovered to finish fifth, with James Courtney, Van Gisbergen, Slade, Caruso and Davison completing the top ten.

All of the co-drivers were selected to start the race, with Dumbrell lining up on pole position ahead of Luff, Wall, Golding and Owen.

Dumbrell had a lot of wheelspin off the line and dropped to fourth, while Walsh made a good start from eighth to move into third place, behind Luff and Wall.

The safety car was deployed but with extensive repairs required for the tyre barrier, the race was red-flagged on lap 3.

The contact with Golding had damaged the exhaust outlet on Perkins' car, which the Holden Racing Team was able to rectify during the red flag period.

The safety car returned to the pit lane at the end of lap 6, with Luff opening a small lead over Wall and Dumbrell putting pressure on Walsh for third place.

After the first round of pit stops was completed, Luff continued to lead while Dumbrell had moved past Wall for second place.

[26] With the rain stopped and the track drying out, Stanaway, Canto and McConville began to move through the field, being over three seconds faster per lap than the race leaders.

With the rain continuing and the track getting wetter, Canto went off at Turn 4 on lap 55, hitting the wall and becoming stuck in the wet grass.

The race went back to green flag conditions on lap 58 with Dumbrell leading from Walsh, Perkins, Aaren Russell and Tander.

Coulthard, Rick Kelly and Nick Percat assumed the top three positions, having stayed out after taking on slick tyres at the previous pit stop.

Dumbrell was found to have removed his seat belts too early during the pit stop and Whincup was given a drive-through penalty as a result,[28] dropping him to 18th place.

This gave the race lead to McLaughlin, with Tander, Van Gisbergen, Davison and Lowndes completing the top five.

The pit stop process saw Tander pass McLaughlin, who went off at the first corner after rejoining the circuit and lost another position to Van Gisbergen.

Lowndes, on cold tyres, locked a brake going into Turn 9 and went off the circuit, dropping behind Davison, McLaughlin and Mostert.

Rick Kelly stopped on lap 125, leaving Van Gisbergen in second place and closing the gap to Tander, whose pace had been affected by the damaged guard.

Davison completed the podium, despite driving with a broken header in the closing laps, ahead of McLaughlin and Mostert.

Tander himself expressed surprise at the way the guard came off and noted its effect on the car's performance: "We had been doing it comfortably to that point but it became very, very difficult to drive.