Anton De Pasquale has set the pace ahead of Saturday's opener of the Darwin Triple Crown with a blistering lap of one minute 6.285 seconds to lead all drivers around Hidden Valley Raceway.
De Pasquale pipped James Courtney by three one-hundredths of a second, improving on his earlier practice time and position in a massive boost for Shell V-Power Racing.
The 27-year-old and teammate Will Davison have won five of the last six races at Hidden Valley but are yet to taste victory thus far in 2023.
Only a fifth of a second separated the top ten drivers in Friday's second practice session, with 0.4 the difference between first and 21st.
In a replication of the morning session, the top ten drivers were a six-four split of Ford Mustangs to Chevrolet Camaro's.
Mustangs have sat atop Hidden Valley's podium at every race since 2020, but every race so far in 2023 has been won by a new Gen 3 Camaro.
De Pasquale says Darwin is the perfect place to begin a mid-season charge sitting 18th in the championship.
"Darwin's always been good to us so this is probably a good place if we're going to turn it around," he told Fox Sports.
"(We had) a really good test day a couple of weeks ago, a good last race in Tassie - not the result but some stuff learnt which we took forward - and we're building off that.
"Obviously it's practice, but we're a lot better than where we were three weeks ago."
Nine of the top ten drivers in the second practice session bested Red Bull Ampol's Broc Feeney's opening practice mark, with championship leader Brodie Kostecki fourth fastest.
Erebus Motorsport's Kostecki and teammate Will Brown have podiumed at every event since Newcastle's season opener and tallied at least one win between them in the last three rounds.
Two-time reigning Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen had a difficult start in Darwin, spending the majority of P2 in the pits due to a steering issue.
Qualifying for race 13 of the season begins at 1pm (AEST) Saturday followed by Hidden Valley's first race at the event's 25th anniversary.
Sunday's action begins with two qualifying sessions from 11am (AEST) before race 14 (1pm) and race 15 (4.55pm).
