Ambrose has plenty to prove

There is a true "when worlds collide" quality to the start of the 2015 Australian V8 Supercar season at the Clipsal 500 Adelaide this weekend.

Usually, there's not too much point getting hopes up about a newly merged Australian-American team who are entering the fray with a single-car campaign, driven by a man who's been away from the scene for nine years.

Holden fans would prefer to point out this 15-round season, rolling from now until December 6 at Sydney's Olympic Park, will firmly remain Jamie Whincup's world with the remaining 24 teams just living in it.

You can't argue with his six driver championships, although us snarky Ford fans will always point out Whincup's final-lap failures at the last two Bathurst 1000s - the flagship event of the series in October.

But even the master Whincup with Red Bull Racing has been overshadowed by the arrival of industry giant Team Penske - the massive United States franchise from good ol' Mooresville, North Carolina, who have bought out a 51 per cent share of local legends Dick Johnson Racing.

Magnate owner Roger Penske, who just last weekend celebrated victory in Nascar's signature race, the Daytona 500, through young hotshot driver Joey Logano, has brought home another V8 supercar legend in two-time champion Marcus Ambrose.

Casual fans will remember the 38-year-old Ambrose as Greg Murphy's favourite sparring partner - their face-to-face confrontation after a hard wreck at the 2005 Bathurst 1000 has entered motor racing folklore.

Ambrose left the following year in search of the holy grail - to become the first driver from the southern hemisphere's most popular racing division to translate that success to America's favourite stockcar league.

The results were middling - Ambrose made 227 race starts in the Sprint Cup series and emerged with two victories - the 2011 and 2012 'road races' at Watkins Glen, the only racing on the Nascar schedule similar to the V8 courses.

And while he is now back where he belongs, as Ambrose's return on the Penske ticket gives Ford a massive publicity boost, it is too much to just expect big names to equal big wins.

Ambrose has to get back into the mindset and conditioning required behind the wheel of a V8 Supercar, as difficult a transition after his decade absence as he felt when first sliding into a Nascar vehicle.

Indeed, Ambrose had to wait some time in the Nascar's lower divisions before he was even qualified to race safely on the huge oval supertracks with their monster-sized banking, where he described the cars as "dinosaurs" and "bloody heavy".

"We have a skinny tyre, a steel wheel and not enough brakes," he said. "You are just constantly fighting the machine because the car won't do it for you. You have to fight physics and slide the car around a lot.

"You have to be really aggressive. You seriously earn your money ... "

V8s have more finesse - it's about that clean pass and not the hard contact - so clear aggression is not as important as cool patience.

Penske is putting together the right brand but, for now, it's about trying different components with their crew, suppliers, and management. Capturing the checkered flags remains some way off, but there is no doubt they've got people's attention.