Jamie Whincup

Starting the 2010 campaign with six wins from eight starts, Jamie Whincup was looking unstoppable for another title. But the V8 Supercars season is a 26 race affair and the Holden ace could only manage one more win. How did the two-time champion not take his third crown in a row? Simple really, a combination of mechanical snags and a James Courtney who found incredible consistency, scoring big points each time out, was enough to hinder his triple quest. But he hasn’t lost any of his skills and V8 followers now that he is the most complete driver in the series and most consistent over the course of a year and despite it all he was actually fired at the end of the 2003 season. Following a brilliant karting career, Whincup took the 2002 Australian Formula Ford title. The next year he was hired by Garry Rogers for a full V8 Season, but the results didn’t come and he was without a ride for 2004.

Tasman Motorsports signed him for 2005 where he was associated with Jason Richards, finishing on the podium at the Sandown and Bathurst endurance races. It was at this point in time that everything changed. He was recruited by Roland Dane to team with Craig Lowndes at Triple 8.

At the time many asked why such a prestigious team, with Australia’ most popular driver, took a shot with the young Melbourne native. Roland Dane’s answer was that Whincup was a huge talent and that he wasn’t expensive.

No one can question the fact that Dane was spot on with his analysis of Whincup’s form. In his first weekend with Triple 8 (Adelaide 2006), Whincup won the meeting! And the following season he was consistently ahead of Lowndes and racing for the title. He lost out to Garth Tander in 2007 by just two points, but you had a sense he was building momentum. And Team Vodaphone’s rivals were warned because he dominated by the series in 2008 and 2009, much in the way Mark Skaife and Marcos Ambrose did in their title runs. It will be interesting to see how he does in 2011 after losing out to a James Courtney whose sky-rocketing confidence. Are his best days behind him or will 2011be the year he regains his crown?