Macca Jones keen to put tough start to season behind him at Winton

It saw him suffer a huge crash when his brakes failed at over 200 km/h, all but destroying his Brad Jones Racing Commodore.

But things are improving for the 24-year-old son of BJR team owner, Brad Jones, following a season-high 17th place finish in his last race at Perth earlier this month.

It's a big step up from the Super2 category, where he spent the last four years learning to race a 700 horsepower V8 Supercar, including a couple of drives at the Bathurst 1000, where he showed he was every bit as good as his famous father.

"Yeah - the year didn't start the way I wanted," Jones quipped.

"But since then I've just put my head down and am learning as much as I can.

"It's a very tough series and very different from Super2.

"It's the intensity - the intensity when you're in the car is massive.

"You're racing against guys that have been doing this for 10 or 15 years, so they are more on top of it than what I am at the moment - they adapt to the track and conditions so much faster than I can.

"They also know what they want out the car to make it faster, where I'm still very much learning all that."

Jones joins a long list of successful Supercar drivers who have come up through the ranks of Super2 to be the best of the best.

The likes of current Supercar champion Scott McLaughlin, Ford's Chaz Mostert, young gun Anton de Pasquale and BJR teammate Nick Percat, have all had to make the transition to the more competitive environment of the main Supercar series, and for most of them, it took a few years to work their way through the pack and into the top 10.

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"The learning curve ramps up massively once you get into the main game as compared to when you first start in Super2." Jones said.

"You do a lot more races and a lot more laps, so you learn so many more little things and its those little details that give you consistency and enable you to push up through the field, because the lap times are just so close.

"A mistake in Super 2 may cost you one or two spots, but in the main game it'll be five or six easy."

Jones doesn't feel any extra pressure performing at his home track at Winton this weekend.

"I have my dad with me at every race, so it doesn't get any more pressurised than that," he laughed.

"But actually, it's great to have family and friends around.

"And whilst Winton is our home track, I haven't raced there for quite a while, so I'm looking forward to it.

"It will be tough only having one 40-minute practice session before we jump into qualifying, but it is what is and we'll make the most of it - it'll be even more interesting if the rain comes."

The Supercars are on track Saturday morning at 10.40am for practice, followed by qualifying at 1.10pm and the main race at 3.50pm.

Jones is currently 24^th in the Supercars championship standings.