His V8 Supercars championship bid is faltering so this weekend's Ipswich 400 couldn't have come at a better time for Craig Lowndes.
The Holden veteran heads to Queensland Raceway after slipping from second to sixth in the championship standings following the Townsville 500 at the start of July.
With time running out to close the gap on championship leader Mark Winterbottom and with Red Bull Racing teammate Jamie Whincup getting back to his best form, Lowndes admits he needs a strong performance this weekend to stay in the title hunt.
Just as well then the 40-year-old is the master at winning races at the 3.12km circuit known as `the paperclip'.
No-one can match his 11 wins at the venue, more than double the number any other driver has achieved.
Lowndes says the time has come to claim his first race win since the second race of the Perth 400 in May.
"Every round, every race, that goes by from here on in is really vital," Lowndes told AAP.
"At the moment, the way that the competition is, you can't afford to not score any points. You've just got to consistently be in the top half a dozen.
"If you can't win races you've got to finish races and that's something I didn't do at Townsville and we've suffered from it. Slipping from second to sixth in the championship. It is close regardless but we've just got to score points."
Several V8 teams and drivers took the opportunity to participate in testing at Queensland Raceway last week, including Whincup.
But while his rivals were logging laps and collecting data, Lowndes was on the other side of the world competing in the Spa 24-hour endurance race in Belgium.
Lowndes says having the opportunity to get away from the V8 Supercars world for a period would be more beneficial than if he had stayed and participated in the test day.
"It's nice to get away and clear your head and come back into it. Going to Spa was probably a good thing for me. It would have been nice to do the test," he said.
"We'll go into this weekend with a fresh attitude and really keen to try and turn things around."
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