MOTORSPORT: Great Expectations

I sent a text in recent days to the man charged with publicity at Dick Johnson Racing. I wanted to tee up some quotes from Marcos Ambrose ahead of his much anticipated return to V8 Supercar competition.

A cheeky reply came straight back. Ambrose had hijacked the PR man's phone and it was several hours before the owner realised! I laughed. He's ready to have some real fun with this next chapter of his career.

After nine years racing in NASCAR Marcos is home and entered as a wildcard for this weekend's Sydney 500. His return has generated plenty of interest in the final event of the season even though Jamie Whincup wrapped up the title a fortnight ago at Phillip Island.

When Ambrose left our shores he had two V8 Supercar Championship trophies in his pocket. Whincup was yet to make his mark. Bathurst wins earned while Marcos was Stateside and an unprecedented six V8 titles have made Jamie one of the greatest of all time. He is the new King!

The cars have changed significantly during Marcos's time away. The new generation Supercars are quite different to the Stone Brother's Falcons he starred in. A fixed chassis design, bigger brakes and tyres, the cars now use a transaxle and he's had to get used to a sequential shift gearbox too.

More than 500 fans took the day off work to see his first laps in the DJR Falcon at Lakeside in Brisbane last month. It was just a passenger ride day and the category has strict rules to prevent it turning into a full-blown test. Although many were watching on it was the ideal way to ease back in before two big test days at Willowbank, held in very hot conditions.

"Really the hardest part to get comfortable with is [to] get the brake zone deep enough. I'm learning the new shifter as well, the sequential box – something new for me."

"It's been a big effort for this team to build this car up – to stretch the staff to their thinnest level. I'll jump in the deep end, [I'll] just try to survive Sydney. But I'm learning all of that stuff that I won't need to when I get to Clipsal next year. So it's certainly fast-tracking our 2015 campaign."

That all-out assault will be a serious one – backed by billionaire businessman and legendary team owner Roger Penske, who has dispatched some of his US racing personnel to work on this project with DJR. Roger has been enormously successful in motor racing and he doesn't do things by halves. Nor does Ambrose.

This combo is clearly going to be a force next season but most members of the V8 paddock are cautious on what to expect this weekend. Ambrose had never driven the bumpy and technically challenging street track at Sydney Olympic Park. He locked a brake in practice one on the way to 23rd – 1.39 seconds shy of the fastest man Jamie Whincup. Lee Holdsworth topped the second session in his Mercedes by 6/100ths of a second over Whincup. Marcos gained a place but was still 1.3 seconds off.

Deep down he'll hate that! By nature he'll work hard to better understand where to improve the car and himself. If he can avoid incidents at this venue, which can be a cruelly unforgiving pinball machine at times, don't be surprised to see Ambrose in the top 10 this weekend. That's just a gut feeling based on history and his tenacious character.

Sport is built on rivalries and this is the beginning of a new one. Marcos and Jamie are both very competitive human beings who really apply themselves to their craft. I know there are more competitors than just these two, but we can't wait to see them go wheel to wheel. Make no mistake; we'll be talking about Whincup vs Ambrose a lot from now on.