HE might not finish season 2020 as the Supercars champion, but Jamie Whincup says it's "all gloves off" at Mount Panorama as he aims on becoming the Bathurst 1000 victor.
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Given it is eight years since Whincup felt the elation of hoisting the Peter Brock Trophy as the victor of the Great Race, it goes without saying he will fight hard at the Mount.
Fighting hard is something ingrained in Whincup. Even though Scott McLaughlin arrived in Bathurst with an unassailable 305-point lead in the championship, the Red Bull Racing star has not sat lower than second all season.
The seven-times series champion has claimed pole position five times this season, won four races and earned another 10 podiums ahead of the season-ending 1000.
Now his mission is to add one more win - in the biggest race on the Supercars calendar - to that list.
"Unfortunately the championship has been decided, we would have loved to have taken the championship to Bathurst because anything can happen, but it's been decided," he said.
"So now it's all gloves off and just a good old fashioned who can get to the finish line first.
"Being the season finale makes it twice as big, the biggest race of the year is now the grand final as well, which is huge, huge."
While Whincup is a four-time winner of the Bathurst 1000, the most recent of those successes was in 2012.
He placed second the following year and while he's been rated a leading contender every Great Race since, he's not returned to the podium.
His dramas have been well-documented - running out of fuel on the final lap, being black flagged for passing the safety car and copping a 15-second penalty for an incident with 11 laps remaining.
But through it all Whincup's desire to win at Bathurst could not be questioned.
We will just throw absolutely everything at it.
- Jamie Whincup
"I've been so proud of the fact myself and the team have been contenders every year. Of course we haven't stood on the top step as much as we would have liked, but we've contributed and given it absolutely everything we've got," he said.
"So 100 percent that will be our mentality again this year, we will just throw absolutely everything at it. As I say, we haven't stood on the top step as much as we'd like, but I'm a huge advocate of you make your own luck and I feel potentially at times we've made it little bit harder on ourselves.
"So hopefully we can help ourselves and it's a little bit more smooth sailing this time around."
Whincup will be paired with Craig Lowndes at Bathurst for the sixth time and second year in succession.
They won the Great Race together in 2006, 2007 and 2008 and in a year which has seen COVID-19 have a huge impact on the preparation of co-drivers, Lowndes' experience is a bonus for Whincup.
"If there's anyone you want in the car that hasn't done much running this year it's Lowndesy because of the massive experience he has around the mountain," he said.
"So we will do absolutely everything we can to give him all the tools he needs to get the most out of himself and I am part of that group as well to give it everything we've got and I think we can beat everyone else."
