For Mark Winterbottom, there was nothing worse than seeing the boss of his rival Holden team smile after losing the V8 Supercars championship lead last round.
But the Ford Performance Racing star says it's only made him hungrier for a win at this weekend's event at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Winterbottom spent more than three months on top of the overall standings until Jamie Whincup snatched it off him at Ipswich earlier this month.
The Red Bull Racing driver and five-time defending champion has won six of the past nine races to be in front for the first time since February by 15 points.
"Yeah, it hurts to lose the lead," Winterbottom told AAP.
"You get pretty hungry and pretty annoyed that you've lost it.
"But it might've been the motivator that I needed just to kick me in the backside a little bit.
"It's the best chance we've had to win this thing, so you don't want to miss the opportunity and give it away.
"I really need it back."
Having grown up just minutes away from the Eastern Creek venue in nearby Doonside, the chance to regain the lead at a track close to his heart - and family - has provided Winterbottom extra motivation.
So, too, has the thought of wiping the grin off Red Bull supremo Roland Dane's face following Whincup's resurgence.
"They were always going to bounce back and be strong ... but there's nothing worse than seeing Roland win because it's not a good sight," Winterbottom said.
"We just need to give it back now.
"One of the best memories of the year is Darwin and walking past them, having outsmarted them and outraced them (to win the round's final race) - that's what you want to do and that's the look you want to see on them.
"Not the smile thing that he puts on. We want to try and get that Darwin look back."
Winterbottom admits he and his team had tried to play around with his Falcon too much in recent rounds and flagged a return to "basics" this weekend.
"This format might force us into being a little bit closer to base rather than trying to engineer the car at a race track," he said.
Only twice since 2008 has a championship round been held at Sydney Motorsport Park, most recently in 2012 when Whincup and teammate Craig Lowndes won both races.
Lowndes, third in the standings, is the only driver in the current field to win multiple times (five) at the track.
The action begins with practice, qualifying and two 100km races on Saturday, with another 200km feature on Sunday.
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