Holden’s Jamie Whincup believes he should not be leading this year’s V8 Supercars Championship given the amount of errors he has made during the season.

“Red Bull Racing is still the best team in pit lane and I have the best crew in the world, but I personally don’t feel like we should be leading the championship,” Whincup told the V8 Supercars’ official website on Wednesday.

“I have made a few key errors this year and any other year, with that amount of errors, we shouldn’t be leading.”

Whincup said the team was lucky no other driver in the series had done “an exceptionally good job”, allowing him to stay atop the 2013 standings.

“We’ll take that, but we know we have to massively improve our performance to be in the same position as we were last year,” he said.

The comments follow a disastrous round at Winton in Victoria, where the four-time series champion failed to complete two of three races.

A persistent tail-shaft issue ended his chances in race one, while damage from an opening-lap incident in the second proved too much for his Commodore.

He walked away with just 44 championship points thanks to his 13th-place finish in the final event of the weekend, reducing his lead over Ford’s Will Davison to just 55 points and Mark Winterbottom to 70 points.

Whincup’s Red Bull Racing teammate, Craig Lowndes, has since dropped from second to fourth on the standings after copping a post-race penalty.

Whincup denied the slump in performance had anything to do the departure of former team manager Adrian Burgess, who was sent on “gardening leave” by team owner Roland Dane ahead of his defection to Walkinshaw Racing from 2014.

“There are 50 people that make up Red Bull Racing. Adrian departing, myself departing, even Roland departing, doesn’t change the performance of the team, not in the short term anyway,” he said.

“Maybe long term yes, but not in the short term.

“I’ll bet Adrian was sitting at home thinking `phew that was a good weekend to miss’.”

The top nine drivers are now within 245 points of the lead, ahead of the crucial three-round endurance series at Sandown, Bathurst and Gold Coast.

“The enduros are unbelievably important without doubt. They are not the be-all or end-all, but they are unbelievably important,” Whincup said.

“So we are heading in to a crucial part of the year and I am sure everyone is going to be on their A-game.”