Motorsport: V8 title to go down to wire - Bright

Jason Bright driver of the Trading Post Racing Holden. Photo / Getty Images

Holden driver Jason Bright says there will be plenty of incident before the 2010 V8 Supercar champion is crowned in Sydney this weekend.

Bright outshone the three drivers gunning for this year's crown - James Courtney, Jamie Whincup and Mark Winterbottom - by topping Friday's practice timesheets at Sydney's Olympic Park street circuit.

The Brad Jones Racing driver clocked a best time of one minute, 28.1762 seconds to finish ahead of Garry Rogers Motorsport pilot Lee Holdsworth (1:28.2721) and Ford star Winterbottom (1:28.5822).

Championship leader Courtney was the day's fifth fastest driver, while two-time defending champion Jamie Whincup - 53 points behind Courtney going into this weekend's season finale - was seventh quickest.

On a track where just 16 cars finished the Sunday race last year, Bright believes everything is set-up for an epic battle between the title contenders.

"With the carnage that we saw here last year, and the way the championship's been see-sawing over the last couple of rounds between these three guys, this weekend will be pretty action packed I reckon," Bright said.

"There will be mistakes and at different points in the race you'll see the championship stature change quite a bit."

All Courtney needs to do to claim his first V8 title is continue to stay ahead of Whincup, but the Jim Beam Racing driver said he's not willing to just settle for keeping the TeamVodafone ace in his rear-vision mirror.

"I'm trying to get in front of Brighty, screw Jamie," Courtney told AAP.

"He's nailed it.

"Him and Lee did their times right at the end there and I don't know if the tyres got pushed back slightly or whatever, Jason's been quick all day, so he's definitely the one to beat."

Whincup was staying upbeat following practice, after making his green tyre run early and topping the timesheets in the day's third practice session.

"The car is not really a fast qualifying car but that doesn't really worry me," he said.

"My main focus is the race and I'm feeling good about it, I'm just going to try and get up there per centin qualifying."

The best performed of the title contenders, Winterbottom, is also the least likely to claim the crown this weekend.

The Ford Performance Racing driver is 203 points behind Courtney, but he's not giving up completely given the unforgiving nature of the narrow concrete-lined circuit.

"I need them obviously to fail. Who knows? Tomorrow is going to be a long, tough, gruelling day but I'm happy with where we're at," he said.

Saturday's action gets underway with qualifying and a top-10 shootout for pole in the morning before a 250km race in the afternoon starting at 2.35pm AEDT.

- AAP