How Pye plans to save his Supercars season

Despite promising car speed and a six Top 10 results, Pye's season has so far been hobbled by no less than five DNFs and two DNSs.

On two occasions the retirements have been due to mechanical failures, while spectacular crashes in the second races in both Perth and Darwin led to his car being scratched for the remained of the day.

Pye then clashed with Will Davison on the opening lap of the second heat of the Townsville which took him out of the race.

As a result of the non-scores and non-starts, Pye currently sits a lowly 19th in the standings.

Pye does have a plan to save his 2022 season, though, and that's to win the Bathurst 1000.

He says victory in the Great Race would heavily outweigh his bad luck this season, as well as make amends for the fact he didn't turn a single racing lap of Mount Panorama last year due to an early power steering failure.

He has prior form at Bathurst, too, having twice finished second in the Great Race.

"We've had great car speed, so that's not something I'm disappointed in, but it hasn't come to fruition," Pye told Motorsport.com.

"So you put more emphasis on Bathurst. People always say, championship or Bathurst? I think it's fair to say we won't get what we want out of the championship this year, but that doesn't mean we can't win Bathurst.

"For me, if I have this year but win Bathurst, I'll feel pretty good about it. So there will be a huge emphasis on that in the lead-up with fitness and making sure we do make the right call on the co-driver.

"Bathurst is a big ticket item for us. Finishing second there twice, the first time was cool, the second time was still cool, but it kind of sucked. To win it would be something else. That's my goal."

Who Pye will share his quest for Great Race glory with is not yet clear now that his co-driver James Golding has left the team for a full-time opportunity with PremiAir Racing.

The team initially sounded out Porsche factory driver Earl Bamber, who was unavailable, and has since focussed its efforts on local talent.

The likes of young talent Tyler Everingham and Jayden Ojeda are yet to be locked into drives, as are more experienced drivers such as Luke Youlden and Garry Jacobson.

"We've got a good short list with some great young guys as well as experienced guys," said Pye.

"I think we'll go to Bathurst in a good spot to get a result.

"There are some really fast kids all and they are all more experienced than I was when I got my start. So I kind of give them the benefit of the doubt. You need someone to give you that shot.

"I'd only done four events in a Supercar when I made my first start in a main series car. I think these guys that we are looking at are more experienced than I was, so I would hope they would be in the same mindset as I was going in.

"You're not going to make your career that weekend, but you can certainly break it by doing a bad job.

"I think these kids are really good prospects, but then you've got experienced guys to choose from as well. It's motorsport. There's never a solid set of hands, because anything can happen. But you make a calculated decision and I think we've got some good people to choose from.

"The team has been awesome, [owner] Charlie [Schwerkolt] and [team manager] Bruin [Beasley] have been very fluid about who we are choosing. It's a team decision.

"Whoever we end up with I know I'll be 100 per cent happy with."