Craig Lowndes returned to his second favourite track with Mark Skaife’s winning record in his sights.

The Red Bull Racing Australia pilot then declared his intent at the Plus Fitness Phillip Island 400 was to steal second-place in the Championship from Mark Winterbottom.

Lowndes and his RBRA Australia team-mate Jamie Whincup put their Holden Commodores 1-2 in opening practice today as both look to seal their Championship fates across the weekend. Volvo’s Scott McLaughlin was third.

The veteran, whose Bathurst (5) and Phillip Island (9) records are amongst the most dominant in history, is confident he can better Skaife’s record with the two locked at nine apiece.

He has had some of his greatest races at the ‘Island’ and hopes for a tenth tomorrow despite last year seeing his Championship hopes go south in the closing rounds.

“Every year’s a different year,” Lowndes said.

“We came into this weekend in a good position, it all sort of went south after that, but every year is a different year.

“Here this weekend our main priority is to get second in the Championship – for us that’s more realistic than winning a Championship this year.

“I think Jamie’s pretty focused, he knows what he needs to do, so it’s just a matter of doing our own thing and making both of our own cars fast and speedy and when we start at the front, stay out of trouble and it’s all we can do.”

The ever reserved Whincup says a record sixth title is not on his agenda.

“I’m not a greedy person, if I can be one point ahead at the last race of the year then I’ll be happy with that,” Whincup said.

Drivers shot up the field in the final seconds, as usual, but it was Lowndes with a 1min30.6899, leading his Red Bull teammate by just 0.053sec in the day’s final practice session.

McLaughlin recorded a fast lap midway through the session, and while he had another shot in the closing stages, he ended up 0.36sec shy of Lowndes.

Shane van Gisbergen – who will be fighting to improve Championship position this weekend – was fourth, with Fabian Coulthard, David Reynolds, Nick Percat, Garth Tander, James Moffat and Michael Caruso completing the top 10.

Others to note include Mark Winterbottom 11, James Courtney 14, Chaz Mostert 15 – failing to set a quicker lap than his practice two time.

Bathurst winner Chaz Mostert finished at the top of the times in the second practice.

The young gun recorded his 1min31.1252 with four minutes to go in the 20-minute run, topping the Red Bulls, which sat one-two for the majority of the session.

Having a good car for qualifying tomorrow is incredibly important, with Mostert saying starting in the front few rows was a massive advantage at the free-flowing 4.445km Phillip Island circuit.

“We had good car speed here last year, it’s looking ok at the moment, but I think there’s a lot of other people out there with mixed bags of rubber at the moment. We’ll see what happens when everyone chucks some good stuff on.”

Scott Pye topped the first practice session with a 1min31.61, with just 0.157sec separating the DJR youngster and Lowndes in the first 20-minute run.

“Still trying to win races – I think we’ve still got a great opportunity to finish second, so that’s our aim. Obviously Jamie has his own setup and what he wants to do, so we’ll just focus on us and see what we can do and what we can achieve.”

James Moffat in the Norton Nissan Altima finished the session third in the first session, with James Courtney fourth and just 0.164sec off the quickest time.

The Fitness Plus Phillip Island 400 continues tomorrow with back-to-back qualifying from 11.50am local time, and two 100km races to follow.