It's Jamie Whincup's championship to lose heading to Sydney but the weekend's Phillip Island meet will remind him just how volatile V8 Supercars battles can be.
The four title contenders took turns dealing with adversity over the course of the weekend but it was Whincup who turned a six-point deficit into a narrow championship lead.
Whincup cast a nervous figure as he qualified 13th for Phillip Island's first race over what he called a "tough weekend".
"We haven't had any pace qualifying or racing until the last one when we genuinely had speed," he said.
Whincup won race three from Mark Winterbottom and Craig Lowndes, while Lowndes won race two ahead of Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen.
He's 20 points ahead of Red Bull Racing teammate Lowndes, with just the Homebush street circuit remaining from December 6-8.
"It's going to be up to us to scrap out a championship amongst the other guys who are all trying to go out on a big high," Whincup said.
"There's no margin really ... it's so easy to DNF in Sydney or have a bad run."
Whincup is vying to become the first driver since Mark Skaife in 2002 to win three V8 championships in a row, while Lowndes is looking for his first title since 1999.
The veteran showed hunger and aggression in race two when he overtook Whincup with five laps remaining to grab a race win, but dismissed any Ford dreams of in-fighting.
"We'll work as a team as we always have. It'll come down to whoever gets it right on the day like today," Lowndes said.
Lowndes heads to Homebush with victories from the past two years and the knowledge Whincup has never set foot on the podium across four years.
"With the format we've got in Sydney, you can quite easily make or break 20 points or more so it's going to come down to staying out of trouble," Lowndes said.
"It's the closest I've been ... I'm very hungry, very happy to be in the situation."
It was a frustrating weekend for the Ford Performance Racing duo of Winterbottom and Will Davison who fell off the title pace.
Winterbottom was the meet's standout qualifier with two poles and a third but could only turn that into 5th, 7th and 2nd to sit 124 points behind Whincup.
"When you qualify pole twice and third, I thought we would come away with good points, but the race didn't fall our way."
Davison's weekend never started after a race-one bump to be out of title contention with 17th, 8th and 6th place finishes.
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