The Contenders: Jamie Whincup
If hard work counts then Jamie Whincup believes he will claim a record equalling fifth V8 Supercars Drivers’ Championship at the Sydney 500.
The Red Bull Holden Commodore VF ace leads teammate Craig Lowndes by just 20 points and FPR Pepsi Max star Mark Winterbottom by 124 points, with a maximum 300 points up for grabs over the two 250km mini-marathons at the Sydney Olympic Park street circuit on December 6-8.
Hold on to that lead and Whincup will join Ian Geoghegan, Dick Johnson and Mark Skaife at the top of the ATCC/V8 Supercars Championship winners list.
“I feel I have worked the hardest this year,” Whincup said, when asked why he deserved title number five.
He acknowledges some who don’t know him well might interpret that as an arrogant statement, but in reality he is simply trying to answer the question honestly.
“There is no other explaining it,” he told v8supercars.com.au. “I feel the person who deserves this one is the person who has worked the hardest, dedicated the most time to winning the prize and I feel that I have done that.
“I might be wrong but that’s my honest truth.”
If results are any indication of hard work then Whincup is spot on, as he leads the field with 10 race wins 10 ARMOR ALL Pole Positions.
And yet for all that, he goes to Sydney knowing he has never claimed a pole or podium finish at the concrete-lined circuit, although he has done enough to wrap up his last two Championships there ahead of Lowndes in 2011 and 2012.
“I have had some recent pace there in the past, I just haven’t been able to put it together,” he admitted. “I think if we do a good job, we should be there or there-abouts. If we do a good job we should be quick.”
Whincup certainly showed he can pull out a result when he needs it. His win last Sunday afternoon in Race 34 at the Sargent Security Phillip Island 360 was his first at the seaside circuit since 2009 and came after he and engineer Mark Dutton finally locked on to the right set-up. He did his part by bursting through brilliantly from fifth on the grid to lead by lap two.
“We were genuinely 26th out of the box,” Whincup said. “We massively missed the marked with set up on Friday and were chasing our tails. It was awesome to finally get there, we genuinely had pace in the last race. We started at the back and ended up at the front so we are happy with our performance.”
Whincup heads into the Sydney 500 with a buffer so narrow that if Lowndes wins both races he wins the Championship. Nor is Whincup discounting the Bathurst winner Winterbottom, who showed strong pace at Phillip Island without cracking a win in Ford Falcon FG II.
“We all know Sydney is a crazy weekend and anything can happen, so it is clearly a three horse race,” Whincup said.
“There is no margin really, we all have an opportunity. It is so easy to DNF in Sydney or have a bad run. So the whole three of us have got pretty much an equal opportunity. It’s come down to a three horse race, a couple of Holdens, a Ford, it’s a good script and it’s going to be a good battle.”
Whincup made the point the battling won’t be restricted to just the Championship contenders, as a whole grid full of hard charging drivers will be looking for results.
“It’s not just going to be the three of us out there just doing it easy. All the other guys are going to be well and truly in the scrap of things and they are going to want to go out on a high as well.”
Whincup played down Winterbottom’s oft-repeated line that the two Red Bull drivers will focus so much on each other in the race for the title that he could quietly slip through and take advantage.
“He would love that to happen and it’s up to us to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Whincup said. “That is management’s responsibility to keep that under control. Lowndesy and I are good mates and we know the difference between racing fair and racing dirty. We will race hard but we will definitely race fair.”
How will the Sydney 500 unfold? Tickets are available now, so make sure you don't miss the grand finale of a spectacular V8 Supercars season.
