Holden driver Garth Tander is seething about a controversial 12-point penalty which he fears could cost him back-to-back V8 Supercar titles.
Tander sits second on the drivers championship heading into this weekend's seventh round at Queensland Raceway, 70 points behind Ford's Mark Winterbottom.
But the defending champion staunchly believes he was unfairly docked the 12 points by stewards for careless driving when he came in contact with rival Jamie Whincup in the final race at Darwin's Hidden Valley in round six earlier this month.
After snaring his maiden championship last year by just two points over Whincup, Tander hopes the ruling won't come back to bite him at the end of the 14-round series.
“It certainly can (decide the championship), especially when you look at last year's championship and how close it was,” Tander said.
“We weren't happy with the penalty, we weren't happy with any penalty at all. We felt there wasn't any breach there.
“We won't know if it's going to change the championship until later in the year but we know how close the championship is.”
Tander indicated the blame lay as much with Whincup's bold challenge, which ultimately saw him fall back several spots, as the pair fought for third place.
“It was a restart and the field closed up and Jamie was trying to take an opportunity and we were both arguing about the same bit of road,” he said.
“There wasn't much in it. It was a fairly low percentage manouevre that late in the race, there was more to lose than there was to gain.”
Despite the Queensland Raceway being a Ford home base, Tander is seen as the man to beat at the City of Ipswich 400 after taking the round in 2006 and 2007.
The race and qualifying lap records are expected to be broken over the three-race weekend with the paperclip circuit this year re-surfaced with a high-grip coating.
Tander holds a nine-year-old race record of 1 minute 11.0033 seconds on the unpopular 3.14km track.
“We always seem to go quite well up here,” he said.
“I wouldn't say I enjoy the track but it seems to suit my driving style for some reason, and we always have strong results here. There is criticism of it but it always throws up great racing.”
Qualifying starts Friday with the first of the three races on Saturday afternoon.
