A clean round of racing at Sydney Motorsport Park tied up the 2017 Australian Championship for Collins with a round still left to race.

“We’d won five or six races and we’d put ourselves in a  really good position,” Collins said. “We knew we had the championship (so we didn’t go all-out to win the races) – we just did what we needed to do.

“We just tried to stay out of trouble so we could go into the last round without that pressure.”

The 17-year-old racing star highlight his efforts at Benalla’s Winton Motor Raceway in Victoria – as close to a home track as he got in the series – as his best for the season.

“We lead every single practice session, qualified first and won both races,” he said. “We were able to just dominate all weekend.”

Collins has had complete faith in the Suzuki his team built this season after putting it through a lot of testing.

He had his first win in round two, and staked his claim for the championship at Winton in round three.

The final round at Phillip Island Grand Prix track on October 6-8 will be a mere formality for the newly-crowned Australian champion.

The win has been just reward for Collins, who put in a lot of training and preparation in the pre-season in a bid to improve his fifth-placing from last year.

“To go from fifth to first is a big jump,” he said.

“The Suzuki has been just unbelievable. The team worked really hard this year, we did a lot of test.

“We did a little of physical training with Defy Fitness over summer – coming into this year the goal was to win the championship.”

Next season, Collins hopes to step up into superbikes – motorcycle racing’s highest class.

“That’s definitely where I want to go, I just have to see what offers we get,” he said.