Behind these two, things get interesting with Prodrive Racing Australia's Mark Winterbottom, Freightliner Racing's Fabian Coulthard and RBA's Jamie Whincup within 13 points of each other.
Working out tomorrow's winner becomes even harder when you also consider that six different teams have won the last seven V8 Supercar races held there. And six different drivers have won the first nine races in this year's series - Whincup, Lowndes and Winterbottom are the only repeat winners.
Everyone bar the Red Bull crews knows they're in with a chance, as the Triple Eight engineered cars are carrying a bit of monkey on their backs at Winton since the new car was introduced in 2013.
Whincup's tally is miserable, with a couple of DNFs and a best finish of ninth. Lowndes is not much better but at least he's finished each time with a best result of seventh.
Somebody who is looking forward to the weekend's action is Kiwi Coulthard.
He notched up a win last year and holds the lap record at the demanding track. He has quietly gone about his business over the opening rounds and is fourth on the table, within striking distance of the championship leaders.
"It's been a good start to the year with four podiums in the first three rounds," said Coulthard.
"We've been good on tracks that traditionally we haven't and I feel we've made some gains in the off season.
"We go all right here, but what is unique this year is that we only have three test days. We've already used two of them in Sydney and we haven't tested here this year.
"Obviously we'll do the best job we can and keep collecting the points.
It's been an up-and-down season for just about everyone as we're all still developing the cars. The difference this year is that there is only one set of soft tyres for Sunday's race, whereas it was all soft tyres last year."
Someone who will be feeling the pressure is the Gary Rodgers Motorsport team, who have struggled to get Kiwi Scott McLaughlin's Volvo ready.
The car has been competitive in qualifying but has had no consistency in race trim, and there is a real need for the team to step up to the plate this weekend.
"We need to make sure that we get back on the ball," said McLaughlin, who is 17th in the championship and has a best finish of seventh to his name.
"We couldn't go to a better track than our home track with Winton and I think we can get a pretty solid points haul. We need to get a bit of confidence back to the team and I am looking forward to this weekend."
Of the other Kiwis in the field, Shane van Gisbergen is just marginally off the pace in seventh place.
But he is confident of a good weekend at Winton - he was on the podium there last year and has had two top-three finishes this year.
Fellow Kiwi Andre Heimgartner was unfortunate to have been taken out in Perth, and he and his Super Black Racing crew are keen to grab a few more points at Winton to move up from 22nd.
He has some knowledge of the track, through having raced there a couple times in the development series.
"Our focus is now on Winton and we had a test day there at the start of this year for our rookie day, so I've got a bit of experience there under my belt but not as much as the other guys," he said.
"It's good to have such a good turn around after Perth, but the real aim is to make up the points we lost."
Supercars' twin-race format to stay for time being
V8 Supercars could still scrap their maligned twin-race format on Saturdays this season, despite yesterday ruling out an immediate change.
The category's commission held a specially-convened meeting before practice at Winton Raceway amid criticism of its Supersprint formula from a number of drivers in the last round in Perth.
Several events on this year's calendar combine two short "sprint" races on Saturday with a longer race - featuring pitstops - on Sunday.
The commission made no change to the format but did not shut the door on the idea.
However, it announced a different change, with cars to get an extra set of practice tyres for each of the remaining Supersprint events, as well as the Townsville 400.
Previously, teams could only draw on a bank of used tyres for Friday sessions.
"Not only will this give drivers and teams more valuable set-up time ahead of all SuperSprint events, it provides a sensible form guide for the fans before we hit qualifying on Saturday," V8s director of competition Damien White said.
The new rules require teams to hand back the tyres on Friday night so they don't use them the following day, then have them returned post-event.
"By getting them back after the event they can use them in practice at the following event, along with another new Friday set," White said.
"This means over time teams will build a very useful bank of Friday tyres."
Pistop
Rally hopes turn to dust
New Zealand can probably wave goodbye to any chance of seeing a round of the World Rally Championship back on our shores. The 2016 WRC calendar has been announced and Australia get another go at the event, as does Monte-Carlo, Sweden, Argentina, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Poland and Spain.
Scholarship closes soon
Applications for the SpeedSport Scholarship close this weekend. Over the past 15 years the scholarship has been a launch pad for many of New Zealand's successful young drivers now racing overseas. The $50,000 prize package includes a season of Competition in the national Formula First championship.
Pither steps up
Another Kiwi is joining the ranks of the main game in the V8 Supercars championship. Chris Pither is stepping up from the development series to partner David Wall in the Volvo S60 at Gary Rodgers Motorsport. Greg Ritter has been dropped in favour of Pither for the endurance rounds because he's already racing the big V8s.
And they're off
Qualifying for the "greatest spectacle in racing" - the Indianapolis 500 - is being held this weekend. Today will set the top spots and tomorrow morning will sort places 10-30. In the afternoon the final three grid positions will be sorted in what used to be called Bump Day.
The 99th running of the race is scheduled to begin 11am, Sunday, May 24 (3am Monday New Zealand time).
Crash data sought
Accidents are unfortunately a fact of life in motorsport and the FIA is well aware they cannot ban them. Instead, they have set up a database that will amalgamate crashes from all forms of motorsport from around the globe. Access to the information will be given to the 139 national motorsport governing bodies, following a two-year trial.
Under the hood
Reason number 42 F1 is in a mess. In recently released Formula One Management (FOM) payment figures Ferrari, despite not being remotely in the title hunt last year, received $164 million. The amount included $97 million in a "premium" bonus, more than McLaren, Mercedes, Williams and Red Bull Racing who do not get an equal split. For example; McLaren scored two podiums, finished 5th and got $98 million (total) compared to Williams who had nine podiums and finished third receiving $83 million. The rest of the field got chicken feed.
- NZ Herald, AAP
