Can McLaughlin join elite club at Winton?
Shell V-Power Racing’s Scott McLaughlin is the driver to beat heading to the Winton SuperSprint, having won the last four Supercars races.
Victories at Phillip Island and Barbagallo Raceway set a new benchmark in the 24-year-old’s career, as McLaughlin built a 158-point championship lead.
The last driver to take four-straight wins for the Ford squad was James Courtney in 2010, in his title-winning season with what was still Dick Johnson Racing.
Of the current field, only Craig Lowndes - three times - and Jamie Whincup have won more than four races in a row.
Here’s how the Australian Touring Car Championship/Supercars records look for the most consecutive victories.
Five-straight wins
Allan Moffat
Oran Park in 1972, Symmons Plains, Calder Park, Sandown and Barbagallo in ’73
Farewelling his iconic Boss Mustang, Moffat won the final round of the 1972 Australian Touring Car Championship at Oran Park.
Moffat switched to the GT-HO Phase III Falcon in 1973 and duly won the title.
His campaign was launched with early-season wins at Symmons, Calder, Sandown and what was then Wanneroo Raceway.
Peter Brock
Symmons, Calder (two), Lakeside and Sandown in 1980
In the year Holden’s Commodore replaced the Torana, Brock won the first five races.
The shorter Calder Park hosted two heats in which Brock beat Kevin Bartlett’s Camaro each time.
It was Brock’s third and final ATCC title, accompanying 1974 and ’78 triumphs in Toranas, and the only for a Holden driver in the 1980s.
Craig Lowndes
Mallala, Barbagallo (three) and Calder in 1998Eastern Creek, Adelaide, Barbagallo (three) in 1999
On the way to his second title, Lowndes won the final at Mallala, all three races in Perth and then the Calder Park opener.
Calder was his last event in a VS Commodore before switching to the VT at Hidden Valley, Lowndes eventually sealing the crown over Russell Ingall at Oran Park.
The Melbourne event became a two-race weekend, the final heat washed out by a storm that lashed the circuit after Jason Bargwanna beat Lowndes in Race 2.
Lowndes was at it again in 1999 with another run of five wins, early in the year of his third title.
He beat team-mate Mark Skaife in the final race of the season opener, won in Adelaide and added three more to his Barbagallo haul.
It’s worth noting that Lowndes did cross the line first both days in Adelaide, but the two-part format of the maiden event means it is only considered a single race.
Marcos Ambrose
Eastern Creek (three) in 2004, Adelaide (two) in ’05
The Stone Brothers Racing driver sealed his second title in style with a hat-trick at the Eastern Creek finale.
Ambrose started 2005 in much the same fashion with a dominant double in Adelaide, but ultimately had to settle for third in the championship behind team-mate Ingall and Lowndes.
Garth Tander
Barbagallo (three) and Pukekohe (two) in 2007
Holden’s then-new VE Commodore made a strong start to life in Supercars in 2007, winning its first eight races.
Tander took five of those victories, all in succession, with a clean sweep at his home circuit followed by two more in New Zealand.
That laid the foundation for the title the HSV Dealer Team driver wrapped up at Phillip Island, above.
Six-straight wins
Allan Moffat
Symmons (two), Calder, Oran Park, Amaroo Park and Sandown in 1977
Moffat took the third of his four ATCC crowns in 1977.
Like the 1972 season, he started in style with a double at Symmons Plains the first two of six consecutive wins to open his account.
Later that year, of course, Moffat led home team-mate Colin Bond in Ford’s iconic Bathurst one-two formation finish.
Dick Johnson
Adelaide International Raceway, Surfers Paradise and Lakeside in 1981, Sandown (two) and Calder in ’82
This haul actually spanned a pair of title-winning seasons, Johnson’s first in the ATCC.
Johnson won the second of two races in South Australia, then cleaned up in Queensland to beat Brock to the title.
He took out both legs of Sandown’s 1982 opener then made it three-from-three at Calder.
Jim Richards
Barbagallo, Adelaide, Calder, Surfers, Lakeside and Amaroo in 1985
The divisive Group A era arrived in 1985, with an influx of European machinery.
Title winner Richards’ BMW 635csi was the pick of the bunch, winning seven of the 10 races, including a stretch of six in the middle of the season.
Mark Skaife
Amaroo (two), Sandown (two) and Symmons Plains (two) in 1994
Mark Skaife set up the second of his five ATCC/Supercars titles early in the 1994 season.
Driving a Gibson Commodore, Skaife won both races at each of the first three rounds, that haul accounting for six of his seven wins from the 20 races.
Seven-straight wins
Jamie Whincup
Bathurst, Gold Coast (three) and Bahrain (three) in 2008
A third-consecutive Bathurst victory with Lowndes marked the start of a dominant month for the eventual champion.
Clean sweeps on the Gold Coast and in Bahrain got Whincup to seven successive wins, before Todd Kelly won Race 1 at Symmons Plains.
Whincup won the remaining two races of that weekend and the Oran Park opener in a block of 10 wins from 11 starts.
Eight-straight wins
Craig Lowndes
Lakeside (three), Barbagallo (three) and Mallala (two) in 1996
Lowndes burst onto the scene in 1996 with the Holden Racing Team, winning his very first round at Eastern Creek and taking clean sweeps of six of the 10 events.
Late in the season, two of those three-race sweeps came at Lakeside and Barbagallo, followed by two more race wins at Mallala, before Wayne Gardner won the final.
The three wins at Barbagallo marked the start of a run of 12-straight for Lowndes in the west, covering 1996, ’98, ’99 and 2000 with HRT.
