Shane van Gisbergen says he must improve his consistency to keep his Supercars title defence on track.

The Red Bull Holden driver heads into this weekend’s Coates Hire Ipswich Super Sprint eager to ignite his title challenge as the season enters its crucial second half.

Lying fourth in the championship standings, van Gisbergen has been unable to match the impressive consistency of his team-mate Jamie Whincup in recent events.

The reigning Supercars champion has finished inside the top five on just three occasions in the past six races, while Whincup and championship leader Scott McLaughlin last finished outside of the top five at Phillip Island in April.

Van Gisbergen’s season has however been hit by penalties and tyre failures at Phillip Island, before suffering a balance issue with his car at Hidden Valley.

Last time out at Townsville he was affected by an engine problem.

While his form improved at Townsville, the 28-year-old feels he needs to step up his form at Ipswich.

“I think if we’re going to win we need to (improve our form),” said van Gisbergen, who ended Friday practice in third position.

“We just had a pretty average run through the mid-season.

“We got caught up in those stupid penalties at Phillip Island and then had a few tyre dramas, which were our doing. It’s part of the learning this new tyre this year.

“For us to be in the championship hunt we need to be consistently on the podium again like we were from this time onward last year and have a good enduro season.

“We’re not relying on the others to stuff up, we just need to get better.”

Van Gisbergen’s strong display in today’s second practice session was unable to be mirrored by team-mate and title contender Whincup.

Whincup ended up 20th after struggling to extract performance from his car on a green tyre run.

The six-time champion felt his car was a ‘long way’ outside of the optimum operating window.

“We kept working on our plan and our progress, we made some good inroads,” said Whincup.

“The car was okay, we’ve got some work to do, but then we just did a real poor job with the green tyres.

“We didn’t counteract enough for the green tyre run and the car was terrible, so we’ve got some work to do tonight to make it better.

“We mainly need more front, the car just didn’t steer on new tyres, so that’s the area we’re looking at.

“We’re very lucky we’ve got practice three tomorrow, we’d be in trouble going straight into qualifying. We’ll just use practice three to get somewhere in the window.

“We’ve got to crawl before we walk, we’re a long way off, so we’ve got to get it somewhere there or thereabouts and start the fine-tuning from there.”

The Supercars field will return for another 45 minute practice session on Saturday morning at 1045 AEST, ahead of a 15 minute qualifying session (1330) and a 39 lap race (1615).