The Supercars regular has returned with Objective Racing to have another shot at Pro-Am Class glory – something which has evaded Slade and his team-mates the last two years.

Last year they finished 20^th outright – 21 laps down on the best performed car in their class – while in 2016 the Objective McLaren 650s did not finish.

Slade knows the team has the potential to do much better.

“The car and team are definitely capable of winning the race, but we are Pro-Am, so we are in a little bit of a different league compared to the cars with a full pro list,” Slade said.

“The objective, pardon the pun, is to win the Pro-Am and not really worry at all about the outright honours I guess.

“We’ve had a pretty crappy run the last couple of years. Last year we struggled with a little engine drama all weekend and then the alternator failed early in the race, so it would be nice to actually get into the car during the race when we’re still fighting for a good position rather than not getting into the car at all or being laps down.

“You’re a racer and you want to race. The first year I didn’t get to drive in the race and then last year I got into the car and we were 15-20 laps or down or something. That sort of takes all the fun out of it.

“It’s still good to drive around the mountain, but you want to be in the hunt for a good race result, so yeah, it has been frustrating.

“Bathurst is Bathurst it always throws plenty at you.”

This year the Objective team once again includes Warren Luff, and Tony Walls, while Jaxon Evans joins them in a four-driver outfit.

Of the 13 Pro-Am teams, eight have opted for a four-driver approach.

“It’s a little bit different for us given that we’ve got four drivers as opposed to three and there is less practice time this year as well,” Slade said.

“You want to try and give your amateur guy, who is the team owner in Tony, as many laps as possible because, to put it in the nicest possible way, you’re only ever as strong as your weakest link. So we want to give him plenty of miles.

“It’s always obviously pretty good when you get to drive anything around Bathurst, so you always look forward to it.”

The quickest lap in the Objective McLaren during Friday practice was a 2:05.1503 clocked in the second session.

In the final practice session, which was cut short after a crash with just under 11 minutes to go left, the team was ranked ninth in class and 19^th overall with Evans’ 2:06.6409.

“In the last couple of years, I don’t think it’s been really strong in one area, it just seems to be the kind of car that’s pretty decent everywhere,” Slade said. 

“It’s not the strongest car across the top, it’s not the strongest car down the straights. But as an overall package, it’s pretty competitive as opposed to the the Audi which is mega across the top but then struggles in a straight line or something like the Bentley where it’s been super quick down the straight, but not so quick across the top.

“I think for a race car there, you definitely you want to have more straight line speed than something that’s just good across the top because it makes passing a hell of a lot easier. In this race you do a lot of passing throughout the day with slower cars.

“Some of those smaller cars, from an outright lap perspective, are quite fast down the straights like those MARC cars. They’re basically every bit as quick as us, if not quicker, down the straight, but they’re nowhere near as good as us in anything else.”