THE ITM SuperSprint this weekend at Pukekohe stands as possibly the defining moment of the 2018 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.
And that seems appropriate given the nature of this year’s all-Kiwi championship battle.
And yes, I know Jamie Whincup is still in mathematical calculations and yes, I know that no more than two weeks ago I wrote words to the effect of ‘you can never count him out’ and I maintain that stance.
However the no-race in Surfers hurt the seven-time champion and denied him a gold opportunity to try and close the gap to the leaders.
So, barring career-worst records for the main title protagonists this weekend, Whincup is out.
What it does do is set up the final four races of the season to be something truly spectacular.
We should feel lucky that we’ve ended up with a scenario where two of the fastest and most exciting drivers in the entire sport to watch, coupled with two of the absolutely best teams of the last decade, are going head to head.
It’s also somewhat ironic given Holden’s current woes and that it’s end of the line for the Falcon after this year that it’s turned into a good, old fashioned Red-versus-Blue fight.
You couldn’t script it.
So what about this weekend being the defining moment, then?
Pukekohe has several things going for it, key amongst them being the fact it’s such a gnarly, old-school circuit that offers so much challenge. It’s fast, edge-of-your seat kind of racing there and the perfect place for such an occasion.
The Red Bull Holden Racing Team will be confident of their chances given just how good the factory Holden’s were at Sandown just a few months ago.
There, at a layout not dissimilar to Pukekohe – fast, bumpy – they smashed the field in a display of domination rarely seen in the modern era of Supercars Racing.
By comparison, the Shell V-Power Falcons were all at Sea there and got absolutely smoked.
And yet, at Bathurst and the Gold Coast the Red Falcons were much closer to the money and looked to have re-discovered their early season mojo.
Certainly they will be relying on Scott McLaughlin’s prodigious one-lap pace to get them at the front of the field at the start of the race, so they can dictate strategy from the first lap.
The history at Pukekohe slants the equation back in the favour of the Holden brigade, however.
To be frank, Holden has smashed everyone at Pukekohe since the series returned there in 2013.
Of the five Events since then, Holden have won four with Mark Winterbottom’s success in the JR Trophy in 2014 standing out for the Blue Oval fans. Look closer and the stats get worse for Ford fans, though.
From 15 possible pole positions, Holden have 11 and Ford only two – one of them last year when Cam Waters lucked his way into pole thanks to qualifying being rained out.
McLaughlin has two poles at Pukekohe, both of them in the uber-quick Volvo.
Ford have won just three races at the venue since 2013, with Holden taking twelve. The other one? McLaughlin in a Volvo.
Scott was second in qualifying and race 24 of the championship there last year but there’s no doubting that the Shell Fords will need to pull something special out this weekend to buck the trend of Holden domination there.
Perhaps the biggest story worth following, however, is the question of the teammates.
It’s here where van Gisbergen has perhaps the biggest advantage of all; his teammates are Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes.
Whincup, though effectively out of contention, is in superb touch and has won five of the last nine races in Auckland.
Lowndes is driving with a freedom not seen in years and fresh from winning the Pirtek Enduro Cup will be keen to finally grab a victory at Pukekohe in what is likely his last visit.
In the DJR Team Penske camp Fabian Coulthard and the Car 12 crew are out of sorts and have not scored a podium finish since Winton. That was in May, which feels like an eternity ago.
A strong run in the first race of the Gold Coast saw Coulthard and D’Alberto sacrifice their own race to give McLaughlin the best chance and that paid off, returning car 17 to the top of the standings.
But they will need so much more from Car 12 this weekend and at Newcastle.
While Roland Dane can expect Whincup and Lowndes to be in the mix with SVG, the management in the Ford camp must scratch their heads in frustration that they seem to be fighting with one car against three.
To make matters worse they don’t know which Tickford Racing – the fast one or the other more troubled one – will turn up, making it even harder to take points away from the Holdens they know will be somewhere in contention, week in-week out.
So we end up back where we started, acknowledging that this weekend will be critical for the championship hopes of both Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen.
But the real story may well be how the team cars help shape what could turn out to be the best championship showdown in years.
And that’s saying something given what we saw unfold twelve months ago.
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