Holden's Craig Lowndes is confident he has added the missing ingredient for a winning Supercars recipe: qualifying speed.
In his last three championship races, Lowndes has advanced 34 places on the grid with masterful displays of passing ability.
His best qualifying position this season was sixth in the first race in Tasmania, the round in which he grabbed his only podium for the year.
After posting the third-fastest practice lap at Darwin's Hidden Valley Raceway on Friday, Lowndes said he believed he was ready to improve his winning chances during qualifying.
"For (the) championship, you've got to be very consistent and qualifying has really been our achilles heel this year," Lowndes said.
"For a number of reasons, we're still getting our head around the tyre."
Lowndes said a test day earlier in the month seems to have remedied the issues which were slowing him down in qualifying.
"I think there's no doubt at the test day we did a lot of searching in that area," he said.
"I think so far it's proven to be the right thing."
He said he had tried the set-ups of Triple Eight Racing teammates Jamie Whincup and Shane Van Gisbergen - both in the top five of the drivers' standings - but needed a tailor-made configuration to be successful.
"We've tried the Red Bull set up and it doesn't suit me," Lowndes said.
"It's one of those things that's got to be a personalised set-up.
"I think we found it at the test day and this weekend will be very different."
Despite being 0.0436 off Friday's fastest lap, posted by Whincup, Lowndes wasn't enamoured with his performance.
"It was an OK lap. It wasn't fantastic but we know like Jamie and the rest of us there's more speed in it," Lowndes said.
The 42-year-old is one of three drivers competing at Darwin who competed at the inaugural meet 20 years ago, with Garth Tander and Jason Bright also still in the ranks two decades on.
