MOTORSPORT: V8SC Island Challenge

Five races, five different winners. On the surface at least the 2016 V8 Supercars championship has started in the most caring and sharing of fashions.

It certainly bodes well for the third round of the championship, the WD-40 Phillip Island SuperSprint this weekend.

But, when you dig a bit deeper, then you can see V8s remains the brutal playground it always has been.

Consider all those winners have been driving Holden Commodores, four of them have been driving Triple Eight-built examples of that breed and one of those drivers, Shane van Gisbergen, has been clearly the class of the field. Now the level playing field starts to look lopsided.

The 26-year Kiwi would have won both races at Symmons Plains two weeks ago in his Red Bull Racing Commodore, if not for oil left by the detonating Falcon FG X of Prodrive rookie Cam Waters.

So instead of leading the championship SvG is seventh, albeit only 70 points off the pace being set by surprise leader – and Sunday Symmons winner – Will Davison in the Tekno Autosports Commodore that van Gisbergen vacated over the summer.

Van Gisbergen’s team-mates Craig Lowndes and the six-time champion Jamie Whincup are also both ahead of him when it comes to points, but not speed shown so far this year.

Phillip Island shapes as a great test for the tussle between these three. It will also help establish whether defending champion Mark Winterbottom’s Sunday revival in Tassie in his Prodrive Falcon has substance or not.

There is no doubt the Fords have the one lap speed, but ‘The Bottle-O’ Falcon’s ability to hang on to its tyres almost all-race was encouraging.

While both Lowndes and Whincup have a great record at Phillip Island, van Gisbergen has never won at Phillip Island. Triple Eight owner Roland Dane theorises the shift from Tekno to RBRA will have its primary benefits for him at big technical tracks like this where T8’s superior engineering resources will prevail. Interestingly, in nine races with Tekno at the island SvG claimed only one podium, a third in 2013.

Looking back over the record books if there is one driver apart from Winterbottom who is likely to interrupt the dominance of the Commodores and T8 it is Volvo’s wonder-kid Scott McLaughlin.

A double winner here in the Volvo S60’s debut season in 2014, he scored two seconds and a third here in 2015 as Garry Rogers Motorsport made a strong finish to a season beset by mechanical woes.

Well, the broken butterfly in McLaughlin’s engine on Saturday at Symmons showed GRM still has work to do in that regard, but you can sense the 22-year old is up and about and firing on all cylinders.

“I think we genuinely have pretty good pace,” says McLaughlin.

“Like every one says, the category has stepped up hugely. It is so close now, more than 10 cars can win on the day and we are definitely in that group.

“We are in that top five bracket that can really challenge for a podium or a win.

“We have found a really good balance and package for me. In the next few races I would love to win again – it’s been a while.”

McLaughlin has also emerged at the centre of silly season speculation that is likely to drag on for months yet.

He is being wooed by current team owner Rogers, but is also reported to have fielded enquiries from DJR Team Penske – to replace fellow young charger Scott Pye or drive a third entry – and the Holden Racing Team, where he would presumably take over from Garth Tander, the loyal veteran who has just turned 39.

There are also stories that Tander’s HRT team-mate Courtney – also out of contract this year – has generated interest from Penske.

But how much of this is true and how much mischief-making designed to jack up prices when the real negotiations start remains to be seen. In reality, Courtney seems an unlikely fit for Penske considering it already has a 30-something in Fabian Coulthard. McLaughlin makes a lot more sense.

It’s really up to Scott Pye to garner the results that make this whole discussion a moot point.

There are questions marks everywhere for out of contract drivers surveying the 2017 landscape. Volvo has yet to renew its deal with GRM, although Rogers insists it will happen. Holden is yet to make its positon beyond 2016 clear, although the expectation is it will continue in V8 Supercars and will continue to support HRT.

Penske has no factory affiliations at the moment, but is a powerful force in motor racing and has yet to make publicly clear whether it will continue to race privateer Fords in 2017.

Meanwhile here's what to look out for at Phillip Islands this weekend:

>> The WD-40 Phillip Island SuperSprint comprises 1 x 120km race on Saturday and 1 x 200km race. Practice is on Friday and Saturday. There will be 1 x 15min qualifying sessions on Saturday and Sunday. This is the second outing for the new Saturday format, which provided good racing in Tassie.

>> All practice, qualifying and racing will be conducted on the Dunlop hard tyre. This is the one key format difference from Tassie, which was run on the less durable soft tyre.

>> All cars will have to make at least one stop in the 120km races and change four tyres. They will have to make two stops on Sunday to comply with the minimum 120-litre fuel drop.

>> V8 Supercars has introduced a new rule beginning this weekend that requires cars don’t change rotors and pads from the start of Saturday qualifying to the end of Sunday racing. This is designed to be a cost saver.

>> The 4.45km track has a top speed of 290km/h and an average speed of 174km/h. The primary set-up focus is on aero balance. Mark Winterbottom owns the qualifying lap record at 1min 30.6099sec. Jamie Whincup has the race lap record at 1min 32.0246sec.

>> This will be the 500th round in Australian Touring Car Championship/V8 Supercars history this weekend and the 916th and 917th races of the championship.

>> Since the NewGen (Car of the Future) era began in 2013, Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes have each won here three times, Scott McLaughlin twice and Garth Tander once. Lowndes is the most successful driver at PI, winning 11 times.

>> Jamie Whincup can this weekend become only the second driver to achieve 100 championship race wins after Lowndes. He sits on 98 wins at the moment.

>> Fox Sports will telecast the action live. Channel 10 will replay highlights.