Whincup won't waste Clipsal win

... for the 2011 V8 Supercars Championship and let the title slip from his grasp as it did last year.

The 2008 and 2009 champion was deeply hurt that despite winning more races than any other driver last year he had to watch James Courtney lift the championship trophy after minor things went wrong for Whincup in certain events, including the deciding final weekend of the year, in Sydney.

In the first four races of 2011 Whincup, driving his TeamVodafone Commodore, has two first places, a second and a third. This gives him 567 points to Orrcon Falcon driver Mark Winterbottom's 423.

That 144-point gap is almost worth one race win (150 points) and has been established so early in the season.

But Whincup is well aware of what happened last year, when he won all four races at the start of the year - and that there are still 23 more races to go in 2011.

He said even after his Clipsal 500 win he would not be backing off to play safe for the championship.

"I am here to win races," he said of his philosophy. "I was in a similar (leading) position last year and got mowed down and spat out the back. We need to keep our heads down this time."

Garth Tander (Toll-HRT, Commodore) is third on points with 363. After a win in Adelaide on Saturday over Whincup and a fifth place on Sunday, the 2007 champion is still more than 200 points behind Whincup.

TeamVodafone remained at Adelaide's Victoria Park pit garages yesterday preparing Whincup's and Craig Lowndes' Commodore for the three V8 Supercar races at the Melbourne GP this coming  weekend - races which will not count towards their championship.

The cars were due to leave on their transporters last night.

Meanwhile, Lowndes has headed to Bathurst, outside Sydney, to try his hand today in the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula One car on  Australia's most famous race track.

Lowndes raced in Formula 3000 open-wheelers in 1997 in UK-Europe but it will be a huge change stepping from his V8 Holden on the Adelaide street circuit to a Grand Prix F1 racer at Mount Panorama.

In the exchange, Jenson Button, winner of the past two Australian GPs in Melbourne, will drive a V8 Supercar around the Bathurst track and is greatly looking forward to it.