Victory or nothing was Jason Bright’s motto today at the Sydney Olympic Park Street Circuit, and he had the win in his sights with just 20 laps to go.

After the last set of pit stops Bright only had Garth Tander between him and race leader Lee Holdsworth, and Tander had to serve a drive-through penalty after running into the Trading Post Racing Commodore in pit lane.

In a heart-breaking end to the season, however, a problem with the car’s ignition saw Bright pull into the garage.

“On that last pit stop today we got stuck behind Tander when he pulled out in front of me in pit lane,” Bright said.

“He was at my front door and he just didn’t pull over. We would have crashed if I didn’t hit the brakes.

“I could see the race leader just in front of Tander and he was getting further and further out of my reach. I can’t believe it took so long for them to respond and penalise him; it was such a bad infringement. I was sitting in third place but I wasn’t interested in coming third; I was going for the win.”

V8 Supercars now heads into the summer break before revving up for the pre-season test at Eastern Creek on January 29, when Bright says the team will be a true contender.

"We’ll go into next year much smarter and we’ve certainly got the pace now,” he said.

“There’s no doubt at the moment that we’re battling for race wins and we’ve still got other areas to improve. We can still improve the handling of the chassis and make better race and qualifying pace than we’ve got at the moment.

“We’re close to hitting the nail on the head but there’s no doubt there’s still more to come and we’ll be a contender next year."