Tonight, the covers have come off the Red Bull Racing Australia Holden Commodores.

The 2013 Champion team has launched this year’s look in Sydney, ahead of the sydney.com V8 Supercars Test Day.

Five-time Champion Jamie Whincup and three-time Champion Craig Lowndes will take to the track to defend the team’s solid one-two 2013 finish this season, a record six Championship titles on the line for the Whincup.

A warning to competitiors – he has a positive feeling about the year already, happy with the mood around the team.

“I don’t have any predictions,” Whincup said.

“Of course, I only know what’s going on internally with my team, and all I can say is there’s a really, really good feeling that takes me back to 2008-9 [when he won consecutive Championships].

“We’re not trying to do too much, there’s a lot of concentration on two cars … there’s a really good feeling for me in the team, which I hope we capitalise on.”

The 31-year old emphasised the importance of the pre-season ahead of Saturday’s test day. This year he will line-up with a new engineer in David Cauchi, who worked on Dean Fiore’s customer Triple Eight car for the majority of last season.

Meanwhile, Lowndes is looking to improve his qualifying in 2014 – a key part of what he believes will help wrestle the title from his teammate.

“The one element we have to step up from last year is our qualifying,” he said.

“Everyone’s going to be closer in times, so every element is going to have to count.

“I was very satisfied last year because we were able to finish every race of this Championship, and we were the only car to do that. The reliability’s there, we race well, obviously always come back through the field when we qualify poorly –but the problem is, when you start too far back you play the catch up game.

“You can’t afford to do that.”

Lowndes is looking forward to longer races, which will feature on Sundays of event weekends. For most SuperSprint events, Sunday’s race will be double the distance of Saturday’s two dashes to the finish.

“The longer races for me are a better element because you have more strategy, more time to make up if you do have a good qualifying. And it’s all about being consistent, rolling out the laps.

“The dual combination tyre races are always a good element for us as well, you’ve got to manage both tyres.”

Lowndes will continue to work with engineer Jeromy Moore, who will also work as chief designer.

See the new-look Red Bull Racing Australia Commodores on-track for the first time in 2014 at the sydney.com V8 Supercars Test Day on Saturday. Entry is free for fans at Sydney Motorsport Park, with running time kicking off at 9am.