Jack Daniel's Racing driver Rick Kelly has finished the 2010 V8 Supercars Championship on a high with seventh place in the final race of the season at the Sydney Telstra 500 today.

The result is Kelly's 17th top 10 finish for the season and his fourth consecutive top 10 finish aboard the #15 Jack Daniel's Commodore.

Kelly finishes the season in eighth place in the Driver's Championship points standings, equalling his points finish of last season.

"I think eighth is still pretty respectable,” he said. “There is only one car in front of us that does not get factory manufacturer funding and that's Lee Holdsworth, and those guys (at GRM) do a great job.

"So I think our team should be pretty happy with that.

"The strategy today really didn't go our way with the Safety Cars but the team did a great job to get my #15 Jack Daniel's Commodore up to seventh and I'm pretty happy with that.

"Today I actually drove better than yesterday. I finished third yesterday and I finished seventh today, so it's quite ironic.

"It's good to finish the year on a high. There are a lot of things that we can improve. It's not like we've finished seventh today and eighth in the championship and we're beat for ideas.

"We've got a lot of things that we could have done a lot better today and I'm pretty excited about how we've got the car working in that last race.”

It was Todd Kelly who led the way earlier today by qualifying in seventh place to give him four top 10 qualifying performances from the last five races.

The driver of the #7 Jack Daniel's Commodore was well inside the top 10 and on his best set of tyres entering the final stint of today's 74-lap race, but a bent steering arm ended his chances.

The Jack Daniel's Racing crew managed to replace the steering arm and get Todd Kelly back on track to score vital points for not only the Drivers Championship but also the Teams Championship.

"It's pretty disappointing to not get a good result today," Todd Kelly said.

"We've started to get on top of the car and we were running in the top 10 pretty solidly all weekend in qualifying and the races.

"I was up there looking good for a fifth or sixth place finish quite easily in that race. I just hit the chicane kerbs the same way I have 180-something times before, or however many laps I've done this weekend, and it's just buckled the steering arm. That was the end of our day.”

Jack Daniel's Racing finishes the season in fifth place in the Teams Championship points standings, beating long established teams such as Stone Brothers Racing, Holden Racing Team, Paul Morris Motorsport and Brad Jones Racing in only the second season of the Kelly Racing operation.

Todd Kelly finishes the season in 18th place in the Drivers Championship points standings, like brother and team-mate Rick, the same position he finished in 2009.