V8 Supercars: Winterbottom looking strong for Perth

Mark Winterbottom in action at Pukekohe and with his trophy. Pictures / Getty Images

Ford Performance Racing the team to beat

Ford Performance Racing's Mark Winterbottom arrived in Barbagallo, Perth, for round five of the V8 Supercars championship in the title lead for the first time since 2008.

After two great race weekends, Winterbottom knows this is his chance to extend the 107-point lead he has over Craig Lowndes, with New Zealander Fabian Coulthard a further 10 points back.

The FPR cars have been the pick of the pack when it comes to looking after their tyres and will again have the advantage on the abrasive Barbagallo track surface. "We need to qualify slightly better. Qualify at the front and we know we've got a good race car," said Winterbottom. "One of the things we're doing is not using our tyres as quickly as others [which hurts in qualifying], but on the other hand, in the race it means you get better tyre life. Perth has been reasonable for us in the past so we'll just have to wait and see."

Winterbottom has only qualified on the front row twice so far this season whereas Kiwi Volvo driver Scott McLaughlin is the best performer of the season to date. He may not have won a race yet this year, but McLaughlin clearly has qualifying nailed. With two poles in a row at Pukekohe and three for the season, he has only missed out on qualifying in the top 10 once in the 13 races so far - the only driver to do so.

He's averaging a qualifying position of 4.54 and has more top five qualifying efforts (10) than any other driver in the field. The last time a Volvo claimed pole position at Barbagallo was 1986, when John Bowe claimed his very first ATCC/V8SC career pole in a 240 Turbo.

Winterbottom is in a much stronger position than this time last year. In 2013 he was ninth in the points and trailed leader Jamie Whincup by 292 points - almost a full weekend's worth of points. And, oh how things have changed for the Red Bull Racing Australia driver who sits back in sixth in the title race.

Such is the consternation in the Triple Eight camp team owner Roland Dane has had to coax the outfit's technical wizard Frenchman Ludo Lacroix out to the track this weekend. Lacroix tends to do his best work behind the scenes and very rarely ventures trackside, but his engineering nous is sorely required in an effort to get Whincup's, and to a certain extent Lowndes', cars working properly.

There has been no mention of Lacroix bringing any technical magic bullet to Perth, just his innate understanding of how these big V8 saloon cars work, and if he works his magic, Lowndes could break Mark Skaife's record for most race wins at a single track in the history of the ATCC/V8 Supercars series.

Lowndes has won 14 races at the Western Australian circuit (though only two of them have come since 2000), which is one short of Skaife's impressive 15 race wins at the now abandoned Oran Park near Sydney.

On paper the teams to beat in Perth are FPR and Triple Eight as between them they have won 13 of the last 14 races held at the circuit since 2008 with bragging rights currently with Triple Eight's seven wins.

Brad Jones Racing's Jason Bright claimed a win in the second race in 2011.

Three of the top five drivers in the championship have never finished on the podium at Barbagallo let alone won a race. Third-placed Coulthard, fourth-placed James Courtney and fifth-placed Shane van Gisbergen all have a best finish of fourth in Perth.

History suggests Whincup will feature strongly at Barbagallo.

Points after four rounds

1. Mark Winterbottom - 941
2. Craig Lowndes - 834
3. Fabian Coulthard - 824
4. James Courtney - 781
5. Shane van Gisbergen - 777
6. Jamie Whincup - 775
7. Scott McLaughlin - 651
8. David Reynolds - 592