Slade boosted by team backing

A tweak of his attitude and his driving style, and some timely words of support from within his team have all played a role in Tim Slade's re-emergence, the Supercheap Auto Holden Commodore VF driver has revealed.

Along with co-driver Tony D'Alberto, Slade posted third and fourth places at the Castrol Edge Gold Coast 600, standing on the podium on Saturday despite heat exhaustion and a Mark Winterbottom 'bump n run' at the last corner.

It was the 29-year-old's most consistent front-running effort since 2012, when he finished fifth in the drivers' championship in a factory-backed Stone Brothers Racing Ford Falcon and was hailed as a budding superstar.

But his career stalled at Erebus Motorsport V8 in 2013 and his swap to Walkinshaw Racing to drive the Supercheap Auto Commodore has not delivered the consistency and results he wanted. He runs 19th in the Drivers' Championship.

Slade has also had to watch on frustrated as the next generation of young aces such as Scott McLaughlin and Chaz Mostert have broken through for their first wins, while he is still to break his duck.

Slade's promising Gold Coast form came after crashing the car out of the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, an incident that left him devastated.

He revealed in-depth conversations with Walkinshaw Racing boss Adrian Burgess and his engineer Jason Bush led to a different thought process for the Gold Coast in and out of the car.

"After a big long chat to Adrian and to 'Bushy' there was probably a little bit of a different approach to the Gold Coast weekend, because clearly what we were doing before wasn't working," Slade told v8supercars.com.au.

"In terms of driving it probably wasn't that much different, but in terms of the approach and the focus for the weekends, it's so tough and competitive these days this category, it doesn't take much to not be where you should be.

"It's hard when you are lacking confidence to go into a race meeting with confidence. Results bring confidence and when you are not getting them you still have to tell yourself to go to the next race meeting positive and confident.

"It's hard to do when you haven't had a result."

Burgess confirmed an important part of the discussions he and Bush had with Slade were centred on his driving technique.

"These things are evolving," explained Burgess. "Car of the Future is a year and-a-half old. Tim drove the Merc last year and this car is a different car for him and it is totally different car for him from the SBR car when he was quick. And then everyone was looking at him saying he was the next great thing.

"He still is the next great thing, but maybe he has had to adapt a little more to this car than he thought at the start of the year.

"But he has definitely done that and we have full confidence in him and that's never been a question. It's good to see him getting the smile back on his face and doing what we know he can."

Slade paid tribute to Burgess for the support he had offered post-Bathurst, revealing it had helped bolster his confidence.

"Adrian has been really, really good. I had a big, long chat to him and he's got all the faith in the world in me. It's really nice to have that support when things aren't going your way, which I am sure can probably happen the opposite in some other teams maybe.

"He has been good - as has everyone else - so it's a nice feeling to have when you know people back you even when things aren't going right."

The next challenge for Slade will be to back up his Gold Coast form with a strong outing at the Plus Fitness Phillip Island 400 thisweekend, where he claimed a third place in 2012.

"The track was resurfaced last year - there's more grip and the degradation is not quite as high as what it was so that's always nice," he said.

"I think with the changes to the Supercheap Auto Commodore, we can roll up near the mark and be somewhere near the front again."

The Plus Fitness Phillip Island 400 kicks off on Friday November 14.