It's been a see-sawing race so far, with the #88 Triple Eight car, the #97 Triple Eight car and the #99 Erebus Motorsport Camaro.
As it stands it's the Erebus car out front thanks to a decision not to pit during the most recent safety car period.
There was a far more even mix of primary and co-drivers starting the race compared to recent years, with the likes of Cam Waters and James Golding among the lead group.
They couldn't swamp the two co-drivers on the front row, through, Jamie Whincup converting smartly from second place to lead the field into turn 1.
He was followed by Russell in the pole-winning Erebus car before the pair settled into a rhythm out front ahead of Waters and Golding.
By that point one entry was already well and truly on the back foot, clutch issues forcing Cam Hill into the garage for repairs at the end of the formation lap. The Matt Stone Racing crew was at least able to get the car back out before it went a lap down.
The first stint saw some big movers in both directions, the biggest winner being Will Brown. Starting way down in 17th thanks to his qualifying crash, Brown made remarkable headway early on. By lap 7 he was already inside the top eight, before passing Tony D'Alberto for seventh on lap 10 and Garth Tander for sixth on lap 13.
At the same time Lee Holdsworth went backwards during that period, dropping from ninth on the grid to 15th as he struggled for pace.
At the 18-lap mark there was trouble for the Triple Eight wildcard, Craig Lowndes forced in to the pits for repairs to his gear shift mount, which left the car several laps down.
Waters hung onto fourth until lap 19 when he was passed by both Richie Stanaway and Will Brown. Four laps later he made his first stop of the race, handing his Tickford Mustang over to co-driver James Moffat.
The safety car made its first appearance of the day on lap 27 when Kevin Estre locked his front-left wheel on the way into Hell Corner and got stuck in the sand on the exit.
The timing was good news for what had been the third and fourth placed cars, with Golding having already pitted and handed over to Dylan O'Keeffe, and Stanaway having done likewise with Shane van Gisbergen.
That helped them jump the leaders when they stopped during the caution, O'Keeffe left leading ahead of van Gisbergen as Broc Feeney dropped behind David Reynolds and Brodie Kostecki, now in the #99, fell back to sixth behind Moffat.
The race went green again on lap 30, O'Keeffe swamped on the restart after van Gisbergen got underneath him into turn 2. That allowed Reynolds and Feeney to get through as well.
Not long after the restart Reynolds was slapped with a drive-through penalty for passing Feeney during the safety car.
Reynolds tried to appeal by letting Feeney into third, but was instructed by race control that he still needed to serve the drive-through, which he did at the end of lap 33.
Six laps later the race changed again when Warren Luff got under Dale Wood at the last corner, before Wood turned in and bounced into the sand.
That prompted a second safety car and a wave of second stops for the front-runners.
The big losers were Feeney and Perkins, who had to double stack behind their respective teammates and dropped back to 13th for the #9 and 14th for the #88 (now with Whincup at the wheel).
At the front Kostecki used the stops to jump the #97 and take over the effective lead of the race, which became the actual lead of the race a few laps later.
The next phase of the race was Kostecki versus Stanaway at the front, the gap hanging around the one second mark.
Whincup, meanwhile, was able to get past Perkins as they moved their way back through the field and into the back end of the top 10.
There were times during the stint when Stanaway pressured Kostecki, the gap getting as narrow as four-tenths at one point. But Kostecki was able to weather the storm before re-establishing a lead of around 4s.
That was where it sat when both leaders hit the lane for their third stops at the end of lap 63, Stanaway taking on new brakes before leaving ahead of Russell, who took back over the #99 Camaro.
Stanaway then led Russell by a little over a second for the next eight laps, at which point Moffat fired the #6 Mustang into the wall at the Dipper.
While Moffat did manage to limp the broken car back to pit entry, race control still opted for a third safety car of the day.
Triple Eight pitted both its cars, forcing the #88 to double stack for a second time and dropping Whincup back to ninth, while Stanaway resumed in fifth.
Erebus, meanwhile, left Russell out in the lead of the race ahead of the #11 DJR Ford, the #20 Team 18 Camaro and Jaylyn Robotham in a recovering #35 MSR car.
At the half-way mark Stanaway had moved his way back into third ahead of Robotham and sat around two seconds behind Russell.
Whincup is sixth behind and out-of-sync Garth Tander while Perkins has slipped back well outside the top 10.
