Only eight seconds covered the cars of Jamie Whincup/Paul Dumbrell, Shane Van Gisbergen/Earl Bamber and veterans Craig Lowndes/Steve Richards but there was a 17-second gap back to fourth.

The fourth place DJR/Penske Ford of Scott McLaughlin/Alexander Premat was never on the pace and if it hadn’t been for the intervention of a safety car the lead three cars would have put them and the rest of the field a lap down.

During the week I spoke to Richards who told me the car was the best Supercar he had driven and this from a man who has started in 451 Supercar races.

It’s an ominous sign for the other 23 cars and a demonstration that the factory-backed Holden Race Team has unlocked the secret to make the new Commodore the car to beat.  

The result meant that Van Gisbergen has extended his lead in the championship to 55 points over McLaughlin and third-placed Whincup has reduced the gap to the Ford driver to 338 points.

There are still 1200 points up for grabs and half of those will be awarded in the next three races.

There has been plenty of debate as to why the Triple Eight cars were so superior to the Fords and opinion is varied.

The Holdens had superior speed on the two long straights partly due to their more efficient aero package (which is supposed to be the same for all three makes), but the major gains were made by better traction out of the slower corners.

The Holdens were able to run with a steeper rear wing angle which improves the amount of downforce which in turn provides better traction under acceleration.

In contrast the Fords had to run at the minimum rear wing angle to compensate for the lack of top end speed, but in the process that reduced the downforce.

The track length at Bathurst is twice the 3.1 kilometres of Sandown and it features two very long, fast straights where outright speed is needed but across the top of the mountain you need plenty of downforce.

Now bear in mind that Supercars are built to a very strict set of regulations to create parity so a team cannot make wholesale changes.

It’s all a question of balance, suspension setup to suit the circuit, whether it’s super soft or hard tyre as designated for the circuit and a multitude of other elements that teams work on during practice sessions.

Apart from race weekends teams only have three full practice days per year at their designated test circuit to experiment with ideas to see if they can gain an improvement.

Triple Eight boss Roland Dane said on Monday the team had worked extremely hard to come up with a race-winning package, but he was dismissive of claims that the ZB Commodore had more efficient aero.

Last year’s Bathurst winners David Reynolds/Luke Youlden were a close fifth in the Erebus Holden and continue to be the best of the privateer Holden teams.

So for the seven Fords at Bathurst it’s going to be a question of compromise and hope that the speed the DJR/Penske cars in particular had last year can be improved to challenge the Holdens.

I know I sound like a broken record but yet again the four Tickford entries failed to deliver with Chas Mostert/James Moffat only tenth, Cameron Waters/David Russell 13th, Mark Winterbottom/Dean Canto 17th and Ritchie Stanaway/Steve Owen in 20th.

Bear in mind the Winterbottom and Waters cars were a lap down and it’s no wonder team boss Tim Edwards looked as if he had lost a dollar and found a cent when interviewed.    

The Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Holden team had a mixed day with Scott Pye/Warren Luff finishing a solid sixth while James Courtney/Jack Perkins were never on the pace and finished 16th one lap down.

Saturday, Courtney crashed the car in the 20-lap race and Sunday made a stupid move on the Michael Caruso/Dean Fiore Nissan Altima that was never going to work.

The result was a damaged Nissan which cost them laps while it was repaired but no penalty for Courtney that I’m aware of.  Go figure.

Special mention should be made of the performance of co-drivers Earl Bamber, Aaren Russell and Will Brown.

Two-time LeMans 24-hour race winner Bamber was competing in his first Supercars race and backed up Van Gisbergen superbly while Russell, who has struggled for budget with very limited Supercar drives, won the 20-lap co-drivers race in very difficult conditions.

Twenty-year-old Brown competes in the second tier Dunlop Super 2 supercar series but this was his first start in a main game race.

He started the race from ninth and ran in the top six with the leaders.