Ford’s Will Davison has pipped Holden rival Jamie Whincup to set the fastest time in practice for the V8 Supercars event in Perth.

Davison, who leads the championship after three rounds, clocked a lap time of 56.22sec around the 2.42km Barbagallo circuit in the third and final 30-minute practice session on Friday.

Red Bull Racing’s Whincup was just 0.03sec behind, while New Zealander Fabian Coulthard was third quickest.

Davison’s fellow Ford Performance Racing pilot Mark Winterbottom was fourth fastest as the team aim to repeat their feats of last year at the track when they won all three races.

The impending battle between Whincup and Winterbottom has been hyped up this week after a series of bumps and sideswipes at the previous event in Auckland last month sparked a war of words.

Of the West Australians, Kalgoorlie-born Dean Fiore was 10th on the timesheets while Perth-born veteran Garth Tander was a disappointing 16th.

Holden Racing Team’s Tander is starting in his 200th Australian Touring Car-V8 Supercars event at his home meet.

Tim Slade (11th) was the best-placed Mercedes driver while Rick Kelly (18th) was the fastest Nissan in a 28-man field.

One more practice session will be held on Saturday morning before qualifying for race 10 of the championship – a 60/60 Super Sprint format.

It will include a 15-minute “halftime break” and a rolling double-file start for the second part of the race.

Two races over 100km will be held on Sunday.