Drivers get most of the glory in motor racing, but it's the teams behind them that are mainly responsible for success.

And rarely has that been exemplified more than in yesterday's Bathurst 1000 and the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix.

Craig Lowndes, especially, and Mark Skaife drove very well at Mt Panorama, and thoroughly deserved their respective fifth and sixth victories in the Great Race.

But it was their Team Vodafone Holden Commodore that was the class of the field.

Indeed the two Team Vodafone Commodores.

They finished first and second, with Jamie Whincup sharing the second one with little-known Steve Owen.

It was a masterstroke by Holden more than a year ago to woo Team Vodafone away from Ford, for which it had delivered three Bathurst crowns and, within a few months of the decision to switch, a second V8 Supercar Championship.

There had been many frictions between the team and Ford, including the prominence of Vodafone's red in the livery on the cars - which the manufacturer saw as conflicting with its blue oval logo.

The Team Vodafone cars are built by Triple Eight Race Engineering, headed by Irishman Roland Dane, who has based himself in Brisbane and takes great exception to being regarded as a foreigner.

Triple Eight has become the benchmark constructor in Australian motor sport and bears favorable comparison with the very best in the world.

It wasn't hard to see, once Holden convinced Dane to campaign Commodores instead of Falcons, that Holden would win most of the V8 Supercar races this year.

The manufacturer known to its legion of fans as "The General" or "The Lion" already had its pretty successful factory-backed Holden Racing Team (HRT).

The three podium positions at Bathurst yesterday were filled by Triple Eight and HRT Commodores.

If not for HRT's Will Davison hitting a safety wall eight laps from the finish they were in line to fill the first four finishing spots.

Holden motorsport manager Simon McNamara was so bold at the start of the season to predict that Ford might not win a V8 Supercar race this year.

It hasn't been that one-sided and indeed James Courtney leads the championship in a Ford - although by 125 points now rather than the 179 before Bathurst.

But he's had only half the number of race wins of series leader Whincup - four to eight.

The scoreline between the manufacturers is Holden 12 wins, Ford six.

The Jim Beam/Dick Johnson Racing Falcon that Courtney shared with Warren Luff at Bathurst was the only Ford in the top five finishers, and - as hard as anyone who doesn't follow this caper regularly might find it to believe - it was built by the same Triple Eight that was responsible for the Commodores that were first and second.

Ford's factory team, Ford Performance Racing (FPR), has had just two wins out of the 18 races so far this season. So, for that matter, has HRT.

Although FPR's Mark Winterbottom put his Falcon on pole position at the Mountain and, with Luke Youlden, brought it home ninth after the co-driver bashed a wall, FPR is a serial non-performer.

Unlike Dane, FPR's British principal David Richards is based overseas and only a rare visitor to Australia - as is HRT's Tom Walkinshaw.

While Dane devotes himself to the design, construction and preparation of the Team Vodafone Commodores, Richards has multiple priorities - now including trying to turn the Mini into a World Rally Championship car and winner.

The V8 Supercar results are testament to which is the better approach.

On the F1 front, Australia's Mark Webber leads the world championship by 14 points after finishing second in the Japanese GP.

While he stretched his lead by three points, Webber's young German teammate Sebastian Vettel drew level with Ferrari's Spanish dual world champion Fernando Alonso in second.

Yesterday was the third one-two race finish of the year for Red Bull Racing.

There should have been more, if not for Vettel's immaturity in particular, but still Red Bull has been the premier team of the season.

It has a 45-point lead in the constructors' championship, 426-381, over McLaren-Mercedes - neither of whose drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, now look to have much chance of overhauling Webber in the three remaining races in Korea, Brazil and Abu Dhabi.

Ferrari is a distant third on 334 points, with Alonso having scored 206 of them.

Webber has had an excellent season and could become Australia's third F1 world champion.

Even if he falls short, he has done a fine job.

But it's not that Webber is suddenly a better, or much better, driver than in his previous eight seasons of GP racing.

It is that he is with a team that has given him a car capable of winning. Capable of regularly beating the long-established and successful Ferrari and McLaren.

It's almost unbelievable after his years of mechanical misery at Minardi, Jaguar and Williams.

Red Bull Racing was cobbled together out of the Jaguar outfit that Ford didn't want and which had been created by Sir Jackie Stewart.

The hiring of technical genius Adrian Newey has been the biggest factor in Red Bull Racing becoming a winner.

While on the surface it looks good for Webber that he has increased his championship lead a little, the worry for him is that if the race results are the same in the new Korean GP and Brazil then Vettel would be level with him - and, crucially, have one more race win - when they go to Abu Dhabi.

Webber is maintaining a very high standard of performance, and a very calm demeanor, but he has acknowledged that he needs another win. Two, or even three, would be even better.

Vettel is making his big run now, and he is an awesome talent.

Like Lowndes and Skaife in V8 Supercars, the German and our Aussie are in the F1 team of the moment.

V8 Supercar championship after 18 races - James Courtney (Jim Beam/Dick Johnson Racing Ford Falcon) 2323 points, Jamie Whincup (Team Vodafone Holden Commodore) 2198, Craig Lowndes (Team Vodafone Holden Commodore) 2039, Mark Winterbottom (Orrcon Ford Performance Racing) 2030, Garth Tander (Toll Holden Racing Team) 1938.

Formula One world championship after 16 races - Mark Webber (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 220 points, Fernando Alonso (Spain,Ferrari) 206, Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Red Bull-Renault) 206, Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, McLaren-Mercedes) 192, Jenson Button (GB, McLaren-Mercedes) 189.