Motorsport: Whincup crashes during Bathurst practice

V8 Supercar championship leader Jamie Whincup has crashed into a wall right at the end of Friday's final practice run for the Bathurst 1000 at Mount Panorama.

Whincup, who finished second fastest in the session behind Ford youngster Shane van Gisbergen, lost control going into the region of the 6.2km circuit known as the Cutting right at the end of the 50-minute session.

The Holden star was okay but his TeamVodafone garage will have to spend most of the next two hours working on his Commodore to have it right for qualifying which begins at 2.45pm.

Van Gisbergen clocked a two minute, 07.6035 second lap to top the session with Whincup (2:07.7008) second fastest and Ford's Mark Winterbottom third quickest (2:07.7679).

Garth Tander (2:07.8003) was fourth fastest as the championship's big guns fired in just their second run on the track this weekend after Thursday's final practice session was cancelled due to heavy fog.

Tander's co-driver Cameron McConville topped the timesheets in Friday morning's first practice session, which was reserved solely for the team's No.2 drivers.

This afternoon's qualifying run will determine the starting positions for positions 11-29 on the grid for Sunday's 1000km endurance race with the top 10 drivers from the session to contest Saturday's shootout for pole position.

- AAP