Craig Lowndes is predicting plenty of carnage in Sunday’s Bathurst 1000, which he rates as one of his toughest in 20 years.

The grippy new track surface at Mount Panorama has already bitten cars in practice and qualifying across Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Five-time V8 Supercars champion Jamie Whincup, David Reynolds, David Wall, Robert Dahlgren, Todd Kelly and Cameron Waters all found walls.

Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander and Warren Luff were the biggest casualties, forced out of the Great Race with irreparable damage to their No.2 Commodore.

A brake failure sent the car into the wall with Luff behind the wheel in Saturday practice, flipping it on its roof after colliding with the rear of Lowndes’ car which also crashed.

Lowndes managed to get his car fixed in time for the afternoon shootout, securing sixth position on the grid for his 21st start in the 1000km classic.

Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen will start his Holden from pole position, alongside Ford’s defending Bathurst champion Mark Winterbottom in second spot.

Volvo young gun Scott McLaughlin and Holden’s Jason Bright are on row two.

Whincup will be almost at the back of the pack after crashing in qualifying on Friday, ahead of Ford pair David Reynolds and Chaz Mostert in the back row.

Lowndes said he expected the race to be much faster than in previous years, but laps not as quick as seen during qualifying – in which a new record was set.

“The track being resurfaced, it’s got great grip levels,” the veteran said.

“But by the same token, it’s a fine line. When you step over the line, it’s almost like a cliff. As soon as you take a foot over, bang, it’s into the wall.

“You would expect with the new grippy surface that you wouldn’t have this much damage.

“But it’s caught Garth out, ourselves out, so it’s really a bit of an unknown.

“If you go on what qualifying and practice is all about, yeah I reckon we’ll probably have some (race) accidents.”

Asked where condition of the track ranked among his previous times around the mountain, Lowndes said: “This is one of our hardest of the 20.

“Trying to find a balance in the car has been really difficult.

“We’ve been chasing the car front and back, upside down and all over the shop.

“We’ve you’ve got a car that works, it’s great.

“When you don’t, it’s bloody ugly.”

Drivers will have a 20-minute warm-up session from 7.50am (AEDT) before the 161-lap epic begins at 10.30am.