V8 Supercars driver Garth Tander believes he can successfully defend his Bathurst crown in October despite a horror year on the track for Holden Racing Team.
The 2007 champion has failed to make an impact in this year’s title race as rival outfits TeamVodafone and Ford Performance Racing have dominated.
Tander has failed to win a race in 2012 but says that hasn’t dented his confidence in claiming consecutive Bathurst victories alongside youngster Nick Percat.
“We were going pretty average last year and we went on to win Bathurst,” Tander told AAP on Saturday.
“We’ve always had pretty strong cars at Bathurst and Bathurst is a long day, you need to be there at the end, not so much at the start.
“I’m really comfortable with where Nick’s at and what he’s doing … obviously has 12 months experience under his belt and has obviously done the race now so as a combination I’m really comfortable with our potential.
“We’ll continue to work as a team to find some more speed and if we can do that before Bathurst then that’ll be handy.”
HRT’s woes this year have left Tander in eighth on the championship standings and teammate James Courtney wallowing in 13th, an abysmal result for Holden’s factory-backed team.
But Tander says the struggles haven’t affected team morale and he’s confident everyone in the garage is determined to get HRT back on top.
“The encouraging thing is there’s no finger-pointing going on within the team, there’s no blame game going on inside the team,” he said.
“It’s just a matter of everyone as a unit working together to improve our lot.”