Courtney: I can't make mistakes

Holden Racing Team star James Courtney knows he needs to make an impact this weekend at the Sydney Motorsport Park SuperSprint and bank a strong haul of Championship points.

Courtney sits fifth in the Championship and 371 points away from runaway leader Mark Winterbottom, and says all HRT team members will need to execute well this weekend for a good result.

It has been an explosive year for Courtney, who has made headlines with controversial comments and clashed with teammates as he has aggressively chased after the Championship lead.

In front of a home crowd this weekend, he's looking to turn the tide on the fast Fords and reignite the fight at the front.

"To win at Eastern Creek you're going to need a good fast car, the team's going to have to do a great job with strategy and pitstops and setting up the car," Courtney said.

"Also I'm going to have to make no mistakes and drive away from the field.

"It's going to be a tough weekend - it's always tough, but we're up for the fight. We've had a good race car so now we just have to sort out our qualifying speed and we're there."

The four Walkinshaw Racing Commodores have been competitive in the races - particularly the 200km Sunday runs, where Courtney and teammate Garth Tander have crept up on the leaders in the late stages - but qualifying is an area the team knows it must improve.

The 35-year old - who won at the Clipsal 500 and finished on the podium in Townsville - says he is more confident about the second part of the year.

Bathurst and the Gold Coastwere difficult over the past two seasons, and that's where he can improve on last year's eventual sixth place Championship finish.

"There's still eight rounds to go and 300 points for each weekend so there's still a lot more to play for," Courtney said.

"I think the Championship's nowhere near over, we can still win this thing so we're pushing 100 per cent for that."

Courtney was second to Winterbottom in the points after the Perth event in 2014, before the Ford driver stretched his lead to its biggest margin after a round, 161 points over Craig Lowndes after Darwin.

This time Winterbottom leads Lowndes by 256 coming into a round that was tough for 'Frosty' last year.

"The other guy had this much of a lead at this stage last year and the field was able to chase him down, so the enduro side of the season could really turn that on it's head," Courtney said.

"We're pretty confident we've had a really good turn of events since the last weekend and we think we've got a good direction on the car.

"I'm going into this second phase of the season really with a lot more confidence and I think we can really bring this thing home."

Courtney is looking forward to racing at home this weekend and had a solid run at the pre-season test at the circuit, having finishedthird overall in the SuperShootout in February.

He looked on form at the track last year also, but a gearbox failure crippled his Sunday run.

"I'm pretty pumped to get to Western Sydney this weekend. It's [my] home town, I grew up there until I was 15 then moved away," he said.

"I've had success out at Western Sydney, more so at Homebush than Sydney Motorsport Park but the test went really well there at the start of the year and we ended up third. So going there pretty confident that we're going to hit the ground with a good base car."