THIS WEEKEND, one of the most storied awards in all of Australian Motorsport will be claimed.

The Australian Drivers’ Championship has been awarded 58 times to, quite literally, Australia’s Champion Driver, judged to be the winner of the peak open-wheel category in the country.

This year that is the VHT S5000 Australian Drivers Championship – the return of big-banger open wheelers to Australia.

Though short at three rounds, this years’ championship has been nothing but compelling; with storylines aplenty and some sensational racing befitting the status of the award the drivers are fighting for.

Six drivers are in contention, but ultimately three of them are realistic hopes at becoming the 59th winner of the Gold Star award – the first since 2014.

One of the contenders is a young star on a rapid rise through the ranks and a likely future Supercars champion.

Another is an ‘International Aussie’ who returned home looking to reboot his career, which he has done.

The third has already won the Gold Star twice but badly wants a third to join an elite group of five legends.

Here’s how they each stack up heading into the final three races of the season at Sydney Motorsport Park.

TIM MACROW (3rd)

TIM MACROW has been here before.

The two-time Gold Star winner knows a thing or two about winning championships and will look to join a particularly elite club this weekend should he claim a third in the final round of the 2021 VHT S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship.

Only five drivers – John McCormark, Paul Stokell, Mark Skaife, Alfie Costanzo and Bib Stilwell – have won three or more Australian Drivers’ Championships and of those legends, only Costanzo has won in vastly different types of machinery.

The most experienced driver in the field, Macrow would dearly love to add an S5000 Gold Star title to the pair he won driving Formula 3 machinery, in 2007 and 2013.

Macrow sits 43 points behind leader Joey Mawson and just 3 behind Tom Randle following a season that has seen his UCS Group / Tim Macrow Racing entry in the mix at every round.

He will hope to draw on his own title-winning history this weekend, too; his first Gold Star title in 2007 came despite entering the final race of the season third in points. Incidentally, that race was held at Oran Park – not far from this weekend’s finale at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Macrow had an inauspicious start to his S5000 campaign at Symmons Plains, only qualifying seventh on the tight Tasmanian circuit. He gained two spots to finish the first race in fifth, but then maximized the inverted top-eight to perfection to sweep to victory in the second heat race. Those points translated into a solid starting spot for the first feature, where he trailed Randle home in a close second position to open his account.

Phillip Island quickly delivered another points boost; second on the grid became first in heat one as Macrow became the first repeat winner of the season. More points came via fifth in the second qualifier, before a solid third in the feature race secured him in second position overall in the championship.

Damage limitation was the name of the game at a frustrating Sandown weekend; fifth in qualifying wasn’t ideal while solid if unspectacular finishes of fourth, seventh and fifth across the three races, respectively, saw him drop to third in the championship as rival Mawson sprinted to the top.

Phillip Island aside, qualifying has been Macrow’s biggest struggle this year – perhaps due to the fact he is a single car team racing the multi-car BRM and GRM outfits and the data benefits that delivers. His race pace and race craft, however, remain as good as anyone’s.

Though 43 points behind leader Mawson, the championship remains a real possibility for the most experienced driver in the field this year. Macrow dropped 48 points to the current leader at Sandown and the unpredictable nature of this year’s short and sharp Gold Star campaign indicates that another swing is absolutely a possibility.

Should the experienced Victorian add his name to the iconic list of triple champions, not only will he have won titles in the Gold Star’s Formula 3 and S5000 era, but he’ll also set a record for the longest time since winning his first Australian Drivers’ Championship.

It would be unwise to bet against the 32-time ADC race winner – the most of any driver – as he shoots for title number three this weekend.

THOMAS RANDLE (2nd)

TITLE VICTORY or not, this year’s VHT S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship will remain a triumph for Thomas Randle on the basis that he was even on the grid in the first place.

The story of the 25-year-old’s cancer battle has been well told this season and the fact that he’s powered his Castrol-backed ALABAR / Form700 Team BRM entry right into title calculations as well only makes the story even better.

Randle sits just 40 points behind teammate Joey Mawson heading into the finale’ and will need to use all of his title-winning experience in Formula Ford, Toyota Racing Series and Super2 in a bid to overhaul his closest rival.

All the while he will need one eye looking in the rear-view mirror as former Gold Star champion Tim Macrow attacks as well.

Illness put behind him, Randle’s season has ebbed from the highest of highs at Symmons Plains to the lowest of lows at Sandown.

In Tasmania Randle was magnificent: pole position and a stunning feature race victory saw him lift the John McCormack trophy and leap into an early championship lead in the process.

He extended that with a pair of seconds in Phillip Island’s to heat races and was in the mix for more of the same in the finale’ – leading before damage caused after contact with Mawson while battling for the lead saw him hanging on in a bid to just make the flag. He finished fourth but retained the championship lead.

Sandown started with disaster in the opening heat as Randle and Kaleb Ngatoa made contact, the former damaging his front suspension and forcing him out.

To make matters worse, the race had been started incorrectly meaning the red flag was shown and the race re-started; though Randle was watching from the sidelines regardless.

Third place in the second heat was a solid comeback, though sixth in the feature race, behind both his key title rivals, was far from ideal. The 51-point swing to Mawson enough to drop Randle from the lead for the first time this season with the 30 points lost from that Sandown non-finish a worse outcome than finishing only sixth in the feature.

The Sydney Motorsport Park decider represents a clean sheet of paper for the entire VHT S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship field, with Randle keen to put the Sandown dramas well behind him.

The inter-team battle with Mawson, in identical Team BRM machinery, is set to be captivating and the pair have shown to be evenly matched all season long – however their compelling and ultimately costly (for Randle, at least) battle at Phillip Island could be a sign of things to come.

With both drivers free to fight, establishing the pecking order early in the weekend will be key with Randle looking to regain his Symmons Plains qualifying form, having started third at both Phillip Island and Sandown, as a launching pad for his title tilt.

While just being in the hunt is already a victory for Randle, this young man – who’s star continues to rise – will obviously want much more than to merely be a contender.

He’s already national won titles in three different types of racing cars – Formula Ford, TRS and Supercars. Adding a fourth in the S5000 beast would add another remarkable chapter to the Thomas Randle story, one few people would begrudge.

JOEY MAWSON (1st)

FOR someone who hadn’t even planned to contest the full season, Joey Mawson has made a pretty impressive job of becoming a title contender in this year’s VHT S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship.

In fact, ‘pretty impressive’ doesn’t even quite cover it: Mawson has stunned this year and after a few quiet years his career has burst into life once more, people reminded that this guy once knocked off Mick Schumacher for the title in German Formula 4 not all that long ago.

The quietly spoken Sydneysider burst onto the scene in Tasmania earlier this year despite only doing the deal to get behind the wheel just before the round itself.

He emerged from two weeks of quarantine to qualify second, win the first ever points-paying S5000 race contested and contend for a spot on the podium in the Symmons Plains feature before his late clash with James Golding saw him relegated to fourth.

Still, it was an eye-opening debut and there was more to come a few weeks later at Phillip Island.

Qualifying went poorly, with no time recorded, but finishes of 5^th and 3^rd in the pair of heat races – both of them from the back of the grid – showed what he was capable of.

That was enforced in the feature as he chased, aggressively passed and then pulled away from points leader Thomas Randle to win somewhat emphatically.

More recently at Sandown he banged his car on pole, wrestled his way from 8^th to 2^nd in the second qualifier and took advantage of tough days for fellow title contenders Randle and Macrow to win comfortably and complete a more than 50-point championship swing.

Suddenly, the guy who entered the season with plans to contest only the opening round was the outright favourite for the title.

Mawson’s ability to race his way through the field from disadvantaged positions this year has been key to his title hopes; his drive from 10^th to 3^rd in Phillip Island’s second heat race was enormous, while his charge from 8^th to 2^nd at Sandown even more important given it set up his place on the grid for the feature race there – one he would win comfortably.

He’s the only driver to finish every race in the top five, the only driver to win a pair of feature races (remember, they’re worth 60 points opposed to the 30 for the sprints) and, just for kicks, also re-set a 40-year-old outright lap record at Symmons Plains, too.

The storyline gets better when you work out that there’s synchronicity within Team BRM for Mawson, too.

On the headset all year, Mawson’s engineer Simon Hodge was the last driver to win the Australian Drivers’ Championship and the Gold Star before the award was parked following the 2014 Formula 3 season – one that Hodge won aboard a Team BRM machine.

Mawson’s remarkable season to date exemplifies just how good the competition has been and how good you have to be to win consistently in one of the 560-horsepower beasts that make up the S5000 grid.

Beating Schumacher junior, now in Formula 1 with Haas, was undoubtedly a big achievement for a younger Joey Mawson back in 2016.

This year, however, has reminded the world of just how good the 25-year-old really is and, should he win the Gold Star there is little doubt he would be a worthy addition to the list of names to have won the award with a record of success both here and abroad.