Mobil 1 HSV Racing will embark on a test day at Winton next week as the squad looks for crucial gains to improve its Holden Commodores.

The team has been eyeing a test in early August to allow the operation build up an arsenal of items to evaluate on its cars for James Courtney and Scott Pye.

Currently enduring a difficult campaign, the team has been working flat out to close the gap to the top Supercars teams.

Upgrades were taken to Queensland Raceway last weekend which coincided with a stronger display from the cars.

Acting general manager Mathew Nillsson is eagerly anticipating the test day at Winton on August 8.

“We’ve been waiting for a while to do a test day and have been working on that for a while,” said Nilsson in the team’s race wrap.

“We’ve got a really good program that we want to work through to really evaluate some things that we’ve been working on and trying.

“Hopefully we go to the test, have a solid day and then head to Sydney Motorsport Park.

“There are some positives. I feel like we are closing the gap to the guys in front with regards to lap time maybe not so much on position.

“It is so close out there. We monitor the gaps to the leaders and we have closed that gap so I’m proud of the guys.”

Courtney believes the team is making progress ‘slowly but surely’ after running on the cusp on the top 10 in Sunday’s Race 16 before a tyre failure dashed hopes of a strong result.

“The encouraging thing was we were just on the cusp of the Top 10 so that was our pace,” Courtney told Speedcafe.com.

“It would have been nice to bring it home, but we were racing there legitimately.

“Slowly but surely we are making progress. We want it to happen a lot faster but these things don’t happen overnight.

“We are actively trying to boost our engineering group and get a good direction on the cars and get a good set-up to try and progress the whole thing quicker than we are.”