Brodie Kostecki made the best of the early running, the Erebus driver jumping to the top with a 1m30.676s on his first flyer.
Right on the 10-minute mark there was a change at the top, Cam Waters edging Kostecki two-hundredths of a second.
As the session neared its midway point Mark Winterbottom lowered the benchmark slightly to a 1m30.502s.
As the final third of the session commenced van Gisbergen found a huge chunk of the time, pulling four-tenths clear of the entire field with a rapid 1m30.083s.
That itself would have been good enough to top the session, nobody able to run it down in the qualifying simulations.
Not that it stopped van Gisbergen going quicker, the Kiwi improving to a 1m29.913s on his final run.
Andre Heimgartner got closest to van Gisbergen, the Brad Jones Racing driver setting a 1m30.108s at the flag.
That demoted Kostecki to third ahead of an in-form Jack Le Brocq.
Waters led the way for Ford with the fifth fastest time in his Tickford Mustang ahead of another trio of Camaros driven by Winterbottom, Bryce Fullwood and Will Brown.
Will Davison, who missed the majority of practice 1 with a steering issue, was ninth fastest in practice 2 ahead of Chaz Mostert.
It was a session to forget for title contender Broc Feeney, though, who only got a single run in.
His car wouldn't fire as he tried to go out for his second run due to what appeared to be a starter motor failure.
That ruled him out for the remainder of the session.
Qualifying for race 1 will kick off at 4:45pm local time.
