FG X debut a blessing for Winterbottom

Jumping in a brand new FG X Falcon is huge motivation for Mark Winterbottom to attack the 2015 V8 Supercars season.

The Pepsi Max Crew racer and Ford star will be one of three drivers tackling the final iteration of Falcon this weekend, along with teammate Chaz Mostert and returning champ Marcos Ambrose.

Winterbottom revealed to v8supercars.com.au that getting his hands on an improved racecar was pushing him on this year, after a heartbreaking turnaround from Championship leader to a mid-season slump he ultimately couldn't recover from.

"It's good that we've got new cars and stuff because if we had the same cars, it would have been hard to approach the year with motivation," Winterbottom told v8supercars.com.au.

"It would have been hard to come in thinking we could fix what [we] had.

"So it's nice to have a new car and you've got that belief that what we've done is better and could be a good year... If we had the FG I would have been really doubting the year.

"The way we finished off was pretty average but a new car brings back the belief."

The event at Sydney Motorsport Park last season was one of the low points for Winterbottom, who was involved in a big accident with fellow Ford team DJR, and saw him dip from second to third in the Championship.

Identifying and rectifying the team's weakness at the track is one of the goals this weekend for his Prodrive Pepsi Max team. And the nature of the circuit will also help analyse the aerodynamic changes associated with the FG X Falcon, which features a heavily-modified front and rear, and weighs slightly less than the FG.

"It's good to debut a new car, it's always exciting," Winterbottom said.

"This is probably one of the better tracks to do it at because when you have a big shift in aerodynamics, obviously you want to be at high speed corners - so turn one is going to be a good test for us, and a few corners here that we struggled at last year.

"We think we're going to try and tune the car up as well.

"You've got to work on your weaknesses, and this is one of our worst tracks and it's high speed, so it's good to debut it here ... couldn't really have picked a better place to come to because we did struggle."

Ambrose - who is the sole driver for newly converted DJR Team Penske - is in a different boat. While he may have won two Championships at Sydney Motorsport Park in 2003 and '04, taming the circuit in the new model will be a challenge. Just getting there was a challenge!

"To be honest with you, the team has just been so flat out changing over the cars to the FG X," Ambrose told v8supercars.com.au when asked about his integration with his new team.

"A lot of the parts weren't available and homologated until this week so it's been a real scramble for everybody to get switched over ... there's been a lot of work to [do] and they've done an incredible job to get the car ready for this weekend's test."

Ambrose's has raced the new generation V8 Supercar, after returning from nine years racing in the United States, but last year the Falcon he ran at the Sydney 500 in Homebush was the old FG specification.

"We know the car's going to be a little different, we're just going to have to react to it during the test and go from there," the 38-year old said.

But despite the challenges ahead this weekend, Ambrose proved why he is a topline racer when he added, "There's a competition to try to win on Sunday, which we'll have a go at".

"We'll... try to be as good as we can at that [the SuperShootout], and just dial the car in, get a feel of the FG X and get some good test notes.

"For me personally it's going to be great to get onto a big track like Eastern Creek, get a really good feel for the car and see where we are at amongst the competition.

"Homebush was pretty tough for me, braking was not very good, so we've been working hard on that too."

Ambrose's expectations with DJR Team Penske are in check for this season as he learns the car, and while Winterbottom is confident, he wasn't making any big statements about what he would achieve this year either after eventually finishing third in 2014.

"You're not saying you're going to win it - but you're going in confident that you have a chance otherwise you wouldn't do it," the Pepsi Max racer said.

"I'm looking forward to it."

See the debut of the FG X today at Sydney Motorsport Park's sydney.com SuperTest this weekend. It's free for fans to attend and runs today and tomorrow, with the ARMOR ALL SuperShootout running tomorrow afternoon.