Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander look to defend their Bathurst 1000 wins in different models

Shane van Gisbergen has an opportunity this Sunday to win a third Bathurst 1000 in the space of four years, with Richie Stanaway as co-driver in the Triple Eight Race Engineering Camaro entry.

His former winning co-driver Garth Tander has linked up with Grove Racing in their Mustang this season as he pursues Bathurst career victory number six, this time alongside full-time driver David Reynolds.

Much of the discussion around van Gisbergen in recent weeks has been his signing with Trackhouse Racing's NASCAR program for 2024, making this weekend's Bathurst 1000 potentially his last as a full-time Supercars driver.

But van Gisbergen, who sits second in this year's Supercars championship, said during a Tuesday press conference that he remains firmly focused on the remainder of this year's series as he tries to bridge the gap between himself and leader Brodie Kostecki on the points table.

"I'm more focused on this. There's 300 points up for grabs this weekend," he said.

"The championship is still well alive. We're ready to do our best and hopefully we come out of here with a lot of points.

"It hasn't been the best year, feeling-wise, but we're still scoring a lot of points. Even on tough weekends we're getting top fives and still ticking away at it.

"For sure we're in the hunt but Brodie definitely has a faster car and he's driving very well. We need to find a little more speed but we're not out of it."

Van Gisbergen said it's too early to say whether he'll embark on a Bathurst return in 2024.

"I don't know, I might be back next year," he said.

"I still need to work out fully what I'm doing with next season. I'm waiting for those calendars to come out."

Sandown was a qualifying session to forget for van Gisbergen, when he went off track during his flying lap attempt. and had to settle for 19^th on the starting grid.

However, he and Stanaway surged through to pack to challenge for a podium at the race's end.

A late off for the third-placed Will Brown allowed van Gisbergen to jump in third place.

Meanwhile, Tander comes to Bathurst with a rough experience at Sandown.

He was behind the wheel of the Grove Racing Mustang and running fourth in the race when the car lost a wheel and put the team out of the running.

Up until that moment on lap 19 it had been a positive weekend for Tander and Reynolds.

Tander said that it's exciting to come to Mount Panorama in a new generation of Supercars.

"Every time you come to Bathurst and you drive into town for the first time and you see the Mount Panorama sign of the side of the hill you don't need any extra motivation, but it's a very nice feeling knowing that you're coming back as a defending champion," he said.

"It'll be a big challenge this year with the Gen3 cars going around for the first ever time at Bathurst. For those who have been coming here for a long time to Bathurst we have to undo a lot of the muscle memory that we've developed over the years.

"There will also be a soft tyre compound here for the first time. There's a lot more downforce and it'll be a lot faster down Conrod so there will be some challenges thrown at us.

"We had a really fast car at Sandown but had a mechanical failure so we're looking for a bit of redemption this weekend."

Tander currently sits equal sixth on the all-time Bathurst 1000 winners list alongside Steven Richards and has an opportunity this Sunday to join Larry Perkins and Mark Skaife as six-time champions.

"I've been really fortunate to have won this race five times and each time has been different, but there had personally been a lot of work that went into that race last year," Tander said.

"That was probably the most emotional I've ever been at the end of a car race. I really enjoyed that one."