Every point critical for Lowndes

Earn as many Championship points as possible - that's the aim this season for Craig Lowndes.

It sounds obvious, but the fan favourite and three-time champ was making a point about how difficult it is to claw back from a poor performance, given the V8 Supercars Championship is just so tight, with hundredths of a second often separating the closely-matched cars in qualifying.

"I think this season... regardless of whether you can win or not, it's scoring the points," Lowndes told v8supercars.com.au.

"If you don't score points, you can't make it up these days, the cars are so competitive, the drivers and teams are so competitive. You need to at least score some points every round.

"That's a focus I'll be taking into this year."

While Lowndes has been second best to his teammate Jamie Whincup the past few seasons, last year's end was a relative shocker for the Red Bull racer, seeing him tumble down the tally to fourth after suffering cracked ribs in a heavy qualifying accident at the final event.

But the 40-year old is healthy and happy back behind the wheel - not only with the recovery, but his fitness, having gone without his cool suit over the scorching Sydney weekend in preparation for the usually high Adelaide temperatures at the upcoming Clipsal 500.

"The heat will play a big factor in it, and I didn't wear a cool suit all weekend [at the SuperTest] so I feel like my fitness is where I want it to be," he said.

"Also for me it's been a good indication of how my ribs were going to hold up and I think it showed the last couple of days that my body's good again. So I'm really looking forward to Clipsal."

Despite landing eighth in the ARMOR ALL SuperShootout, the form guide out of the SuperTest weekend, Lowndes was just 0.6sec off fastest competitor Chaz Mostert and deemed the test a success, despite some expecting to see his name higher on the totem pole.

Working with a new engineer in Grant McPherson, who ran Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison the last two years, Lowndes was looking to strengthen that relationship and ensure the communication was spot on.

"We've got a much better understanding of each other," Lowndes said.

"He understands my mentality and the way I do things and I've got a much better understanding and appreciation of him. So that was a huge success and we achieved what we wanted this weekend - that was the ultimate aim.

"We went through a lot of changes in the car - some made sense, some didn't, some went faster, some didn't - but we've got a much better understanding of the ingredients and the tools we've got to play with in the chest."

Lowndes believes there is more pace the team can extract from the Holden Commodore VFs, and is certain they will be well-placed come the Clipsal 500, where he wonthe second Saturday race in 2013.

"We need, obviously, to find a little bit more speed - I know it's in the car, it's just a matter of both of us untapping it a bit more. But I'm confident, I'm really happy with where we have ended up at the end of the weekend," Lowndes explained.

"As I said, as we get into the year Grant and I will get a lot stronger and understand the car a bit better so I'm not too worried at the moment.

"I think it's a great exciting time."

Likewise, Whincup seemed unconcerned about the result of the SuperShootout, after finishing 12th: "We're just doing our thing, trying to run through our test plan and we were able to do that successfully. There might be signs I'm on the way back[ward], we'll find out in Adelaide."

See how the Bulls and their competitors stack up at the year's first race, the Clipsal 500, from February 26-March 1.