He was told he’d end up “looking really ordinary” if he teamed up with Craig Lowndes at Triple Eight Racing eight years ago.
Now Jamie Whincup finds himself among V8 Supercars’ all-time greats with a record-tying five championships.
“The number’s massive, I must admit,” the Holden star said after clinching the 2013 crown with a podium finish in the season’s final race in Sydney on Sunday.
Whincup joins the late Ian Geoghegan, Dick Johnson and Mark Skaife as the only five-time title winners in Australian touring car history.
He also becomes the first driver to win three championships in a row since Skaife did in 2002.
From the outside it seemed an easy task to complete for the 30-year-old, who held a 20-point lead over Lowndes heading into last event of the year.
He stamped his mark early by topping the timesheets in Friday practice, before securing pole position and winning his first race at the brutal Sydney Olympic Park circuit on Saturday.
The victory extended his standings lead to 110 points and knocked out two of three championship rivals in the process.
The last man standing was teammate and three-time champion Lowndes.
The popular veteran was chasing his first title in 14 years, but admitted his only realistic chance of snatching the title was if Whincup failed to finish Sunday’s grand finale.
Lowndes crossed the line fifth to finish the year runner-up for the third straight season behind Whincup.
“It’s a credit to him, he’s a legend,” Lowndes, still smiling, said.
While their partnership has reaped dividends for team boss Roland Dane, it almost didn’t happen.
“I had some fairly high calibre people telling me definitely don’t join the team (in 2005) because Craig Lowndes makes all his teammates look really ordinary. You’ll be the next one – you’ll end up back on the scrap heap,” Whincup revealed.
“But I backed myself and got a really good bunch of guys around me.
“It’s incredible sitting here with five championships now.”
He almost risked it all in a few tense moments in the closing stages of Sunday’s race – won by Shane Van Gisbergen – trading bumps with second-placegetter Jason Bright.
“I just couldn’t help but race,” he said.
“These boys were just banging the walls every second corner – it was really good to watch, so I was more of a fan than anything else.”
Will Davison managed to secure third spot in the overall drivers’ standings after finishing seventh in his final drive for Ford Performance Racing.
His teammate Mark Winterbottom, whose bid for a maiden title ended with a DNF on Saturday, crossed the line in sixth to finish fourth overall.
Van Gisbergen capped off a controversial year with an equal-best fifth.
Just over 131,000 people attended the Sydney 500 over the three days.
