A sprint to the finish

This is it. The last time you can play selfishly with your favourite toy before you become 'big brother' and have to share. The final weekend before we enter everyone's favourite phase of the Championship - the PIRTEK Enduro Cup. Things are getting exciting, the Championship is getting juicy and it's time to get serious.

Let's take a minute to look at where we are. 'Frosty' is leading the Championship by 256 points ahead of Craig Lowndes with eight wins, Chaz Mostert sits third with eight ARMOR ALL Pole Positions and PRA has racked up 12 of the last 14 wins including the last six straight.

Lowndes has three wins and 10 podiums, but despite his two wins Whincup has gone 14 races without a victory - something that hasn't happened since 2007. The six-time defending champ sits 480 points off the Championship lead.

Garth Tander and James Courtney have one and five podiums respectively at the other factory Holden team.

And the man talking up his stocks for the coming silly season, Fabian Coulthard, has dropped to sixth in the Championship after only breaking into the top 10 once across all sessions last time out at Queensland Raceway.

David Reynolds is in the mix - a serious title contender hot on the heels of Mostert, thanks to being a consistent accumulator of points - and Todd Kelly, loitering just outside the 10 desperate to finish top 10 for the first time in eight years.

We left Ipswich similarly to how we have left the last four events - blown away by the exceptional speed of PRA and wondering if somebody is going to be able to catch them. Lowndes, perhaps?

The team believes he can, he is confident and things came together for him at his most successful circuit last event, finishing on the podium in all three races.

As we turn our attention to the Sydney Motorsport Park SuperSprint - the place where Lowndes scored Triple Eight Engineering's first ever V8 Supercar victory back in 2005 - CL leads the way in success for current drivers in the field. Five wins and two pole positions - it could be a weekend where he makes up important ground.

However, wind back the clock 12 months and he almost handed teammate Whincup the Championship with costly errors during qualifying that resulted in him starting 21st and 23rd respectively on the grid. He definitely cannot afford mistakes like that in a year where RBRA is all but throwing its title hopes behind the people's champ.

There has been limited racing at SMP in recent years. The Championship took some time away from the circuit after 2008, returned in 2012 and then again last year. It's difficult to look at last year's form given the exceptional weather conditions where the track basically turned into a river for a day and van Gisbergen put on a wet weather clinic.

Then there's the question of just how much can be taken from the pre-season SuperTest. It was an incredibly hot day and it was six months ago. Regardless, one thing is consistent. Mostert topped the timesheets after the full-field Shootout on Sunday and he is the man currently leading the ARMOR ALL Pole Position Award. Coincidence? I think not.

Friday morning will see another additional driver session - with the co-driver line-up finalised, we can expect to see the majority of teams utilise this vital track time.

Another SuperSprint format continues on from Queensland Raceway, but with the final points on offer prior to the enduro campaign, mindset is everything. Ensuring no added pressure or workload affects the teams is also something looming in the background.

If you look back to last year and the significant damage sustained to Tim Slade, Scott Pye and David Reynolds, it can have a significant impact on preparation for the next phase in the championship campaign.

There have been a couple of minor changes to the track since the test day, one of those being the change of placement of the timing loop at turn six.

It was there during the test day but drivers will be forced to take a much narrower line and will definitely change the attitude of the corner. I think we will really notice this during qualifying and drivers will be caught out if they are not careful.

Over the years the track has been gradually resurfaced in various parts and the nature of the surface and long loaded corners puts a huge amount of stress on the soft tyre in particular. On Sunday we are definitely going to see a massive strategy game - more than any of the recent race meetings we have had - and it will be all about who jumps first and who is prepared to be the bravest!

Each weekend we have been surprised at the amount of laps drivers - in particular the PRA, HRT and Erebus guys - have been getting out of their soft tyres.

This weekend it will be a risky game. Jump first, make them follow and hope you can survive is what they will be thinking. But who can afford the most risk?

Riana's Wrap- HRT strategy will be a winner- PRA will continue to show its pace- Has BJR flat lined?- Nissan needs to find its missing speed.

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