MOTORSPORT: Who will challenge Winterbottom?

As the V8 Supercars circus heads to Queensland Raceway near Ipswich this weekend, the key question on-track is who among Mark Winterbottom's rivals will emerge to challenge him for the 2015 drivers' championship.

The key question off-track is which teams will those rivals be driving for in 2016?

Since early May Winterbottom has been in a class of his own once the green light has flashed on, taking six wins from 11 starts in his Prodrive Racing Australia Pepsi-Max Ford Falcon FG X and building a 248-point buffer over Craig Lowndes and his Red Bull Racing Holden Commodore VF.

And while Winterbottom has been dominating the races, his fast but inexperienced teammate Chaz Mostert has been doing the same job in qualifying, starting on the front row eight times in the last 11 starts, six of them from pole.

And jostling with both of them has been the PRA-satellite Bottle-O entry of David Reynolds, who has had a great recent run to vault past Mostert into fourth in the championship.

All this fast Ford form has led to plenty of speculation about aerodynamic parity equations gone wrong, but V8 Supercars stoutly insists that isn't the case.

The word is quietly being put about that the data actually shows the Ford isn't faster, it's the VF – which had its own aero overhaul in the off-season – that has traded in cornering prowess for straight-line speed to the detriment of its lap times.

Whatever, the real story – and it's undoubtedly complex given how hard these teams work to eke out the smallest technical advantage – the reality is Winterbottom has set up an incredibly solid foundation for a shot at his first V8 drivers' championship and PRA's first team's championship... After more than decade of trying.

All this in the year that is their last as paid representatives of the Ford Motor Company.

Speaking of pay, the senior drivers out of contract (with current team in brackets) are Fabian Coulthard (Brad Jones Racing), David Reynolds (Rod Nash Racing), James Moffat (Nissan Motorsport) and Tim Slade (Walkinshaw/Supercheap Auto Racing).

Then there are the up and comers, lesser lights, would-bes and could-bes who also want a drive in 2016; Scott Pye (DJR Team Penske), Cam Waters (development series), Dale Wood (BJR), David Wall (Volvo) and Tim Blanchard (LDM).

Marcos Ambrose is harder to classify. He has to decide if he will continue his aborted return to the championship. Most people seem to think he won't. Ambrose says he will make a call after the enduros.

Another veteran, Jason Bright, is on a rolling deal with BJR but there's no news for 2016 yet.

Then there's a bunch of drivers who are contracted for next year (and beyond in some cases) who have been mentioned as possible movers anyway, the most obvious being Will Davison (Erebus) who is on big bucks at a financially-strapped team.

On top of the teams listed above, who will potentially be looking for a new driver, you can add Tekno Autosports. It has already lost Shane van Gisbergen to the expanding Triple Eight Race Engineering. Then there's DJR Team Penske, which could be looking for two drivers, if (and that's a big if right now) it expands to two cars and neither of its current drivers re-sign.

Coulthard, who is third in the championship in the Freightliner Racing VF is the lynchpin to all this driver movement, but Reynolds' stocks are rising rapidly. Moffat is still well regarded despite being frustrated by the under-powered Nissan Altima, but Slade – who is yet to win after more than 200 race starts – needs to remind the paddock of the speed which took him to the front of the field a few years ago. He is something of an Ipswich specialist so maybe this weekend?

Overlaying all this are question marks over the future of naming rights sponsors including Pepsi-Max, Bottle-O, Supercheap and Darrel Lea (at Tekno).

So all that adds up to many different potential scenarios in terms of driver, sponsors and team placements for 2016. It's entirely likely much of it will only become clear months from now.

So let's focus on this weekend instead. On-track here's what to look out for: