He will be pushing to get on the podium again in the four remaining rounds – starting with this Sunday’s Bathurst 1000 – and trying to finish in the top 10 for the drivers’ championship.

Slade will arrive sitting 10^th in the championship and has ranked as high as seventh so far this year.

Since making his championship debut in 2009, Slade has twice finished in the top 10 at the conclusion of the season. In 2011 he placed ninth and in 2012 ranked fifth as he campaigned with Stone Brothers Racing.

In 2012 it was a solid run in the endurance rounds that boosted his standings. 

Slade and his co-driver Ash Walsh were only able to manage 16^th at last month’s Sandown 500, so are hoping for better at Mount Panorama and on the Gold Coast.

“There are so many points on offer for the enduros, so you really need to have that consistency there,” Slade said.

“In 2012, from memory, we were seventh Sandown, seventh Bathurst and then I think fourth and fifth at those two races at the Gold Coast and we ended up coming fifth in the championship that year because we had such a solid run in the enduros..

“I’d love this year if we could have a good, solid endurance campaign.

“Obviously we are all out there to win the race, but I think if we can get through, stay out of trouble and get some good, consistent results then I will be fairly pleased.”

Slade knows what it takes to win, having posted a pair of victories at Winton earlier this year. He broke his maiden on his 227^th attempt.

“I guess it is a bit of a monkey off the back. I think we had finished second five or six times before, so to finally get that win was awesome and to do it again the next day was even better,” Slade said.

“The big thing for me this year was wanting to run in the top 10 consistently again because the category is so tough and competitive. I think if you can run in the top 10 week in and week out, you can have weekend where you are on top of it, you are going to get some trophies.

“That is where I feel we are at this year, we haven’t had one weekend where we’ve come out of and thought that we really sucked all weekend. Even before Winton, the first few races of the year … they were still solid but they weren’t fantastic, there were still lots of positives to come out of those weekends.

“I knew that once we put it all together, there was definitely a good result there to be had and Winton I guess was the icebreaker.”