MOTORSPORT: 'Ton' of wins looms for Lowndes

In all probability Craig Lowndes will become V8 Supercar's first centurion race winner this weekend.

Perth's Barbagallo Raceway has been the 40-year-old's happiest, or at least most fruitful, hunting ground over two decades and would be a fitting place for him to notch his 100th championship race victory.

Lowndes has had to sit on 99 wins for five weeks after an early break in the V8 Supercar Championship calendar, but unlike cricket batsmen nearing three figures there has been no need to get nervous.

He has won 15 times at the "sandpit" circuit previously known simply as Wanneroo, the area in northern Perth where it sits.

No other driver in Australian touring car/V8 Supercar racing has been so successful at any venue.

Although he has the most race wins in history, triple national champion Lowndes has not won a series title this century – but that has not diminished his popularity among fans one iota.

Four of his five Bathurst 1000 triumphs have come in the past decade, although in the overall championship in recent years he has largely played second fiddle to Triple Eight Race Engineering teammate Jamie Whincup, who has been champion six of the past seven seasons.

Both have overtaken Mark Skaife's previous record of 90 races wins – Whincup is on 91 and, at the rate he's going, most likely will top "the ton" and also overhaul Lowndes in the next year or two.

But Lowndes, a protégé of the late Peter Brock and from the same Diamond Valley on Melbourne's northern outskirts, although long based in Queensland now, surely will be the first to the century.

While he readily acknowledges Whincup's brilliance in recent years, and next year will have a second teammate when Shane Van Gisbergen joins Triple Eight, it's the Prodrive squad – formerly Ford Performance Racing – with its fleet of FG X Falcons that Lowndes is wary of, heading into the Perth event.

Those Falcons are driven by the Bathurst 1000 winners of the past two years, Mark Winterbottom and Chaz Mostert, as well as David Reynolds and the latest young New Zealand star Andre Heimgartner.

Another FG X is fielded by Dick Johnson Racing (DJR) Team Penske with Scott Pye in the seat, while two-time V8 Supercar champion and veteran of almost a decade in America's NASCAR, Marcos Ambrose, mulls a return after finding the new-generation machinery difficult and "benching" himself.

That Falcon has been brought more into line with the Prodrive cars for this round under the technical alliance between the Ford teams.

"Our [Holden Commodore] car is very competitive, but the aero update that the Fords, Holdens and Nissans got over Christmas definitely helped the Fords, definitely helped the Nissans, and it helped us – but it hasn't given us a heap more front or rear [grip]," Lowndes said.

"We have more of a better overall package.

"The Falcon guys were always complaining about the rear not being stuck. They always had good front but no rear, but now they have a well-balanced car too."

Lowndes won a quarter of his races in Fords between his original stint in Holdens and his return to the Lion brand with which he's had the other three quarters of his success.

He said Barbagallo, with its long-radius corners (other than the sharp right-hander from the back straight on to the pit straight), suited his driving style.

The 2.42km track is the only one in the championship other than Symmons Plains, where Lowndes won two of the three races last month (and copped a drive-through penalty in the other after starting at the front), where the V8 Supercars lap in under a minute. The average speed is almost 160kmh.

"Barbagallo is all about getting the flow of the car right and looking after the tyres," Lowndes said.

"The bitumen surface [with sand blowing on to it] wears the tyres very quickly.

"Having three races [in this weekend's SuperSprint format, with two on Saturday and the other on Sunday], especially with the soft tyre option on Sunday, will make it important to get the strategy and balance of the car right."

Strangely, Perth has not been kind to James Courtney, the 2010 champion then in a DJR Falcon, but now Holden Racing Team's main challenger.

Just 19 points behind Whincup this season (464 to 483) and four ahead of Lowndes, Courtney has never finished higher than fourth at Barbagallo – and that was in 2009.

However, it is home to Courtney's HRT teammate Garth Tander, who is fourth on the all-time list of V8 Supercar Championship race wins with 53 – five more than Brock.

Tander has had plenty of success at Barbagallo and said the circuit was "not just about speed but how you handle your tyre wear".

"The amount of grip changes all the time because of the sand blowing on to the track," Tander said.

The Melbourne-based West Australian is fourth in the points this season with 457, just one more than Van Gisbergen in a Triple Eight Commodore fielded by Tekno Autosports.

Like Courtney, New Zealander Van Gisbergen is yet to stand on the V8 Supercar podium at Barbagallo.

Fellow Kiwi Scott McLaughlin's Volvo S60 has a new, and he hopes improved, engine from Polestar in Sweden for this round after an unreliable start to the season.

And from this round all V8 Supercars will be fitted with tyre pressure sensors that will deliver live data to the crews in the garages and the driver cockpits.

Predominantly a safety measure, Triple Eight engineer Mark Dutton said the Beru f1 Systems sensors would "give teams the opportunity to use data in a more in-depth way, which could act as a leveler to the playing field."

"This could mix things up a little bit," Dutton said.

But that "ton" for Lowndes can't be far away. It's only a matter of time.