Van Gisbergen's plan to race from the back

A low-starting Shane van Gisbergen is adamant Albert Park presents “heaps” of overtaking opportunities.

Van Gisbergen will start Friday’s Beaurepaires Melbourne 400 opener from the rear of the grid.

The points leader was stung by a red flag following a crash for Jake Kostecki.

Van Gisbergen triggered a kerb strike on his flying lap, and returned to the lane.

The session was not restarted, consigning van Gisbergen to 25th.

With Kostecki's time wiped and Scott Pye falling foul of maximum lap time, van Gisbergen will start 23rd.

The Kiwi has form in charges through the field; notably, he raced from 17th to victory at Sandown last year.

With an eye on another fightback, van Gisbergen believes Albert Park will be conducive to overtaking.

"I don’t know why everyone is saying there’s no places to pass... there’s heaps," he said.

"I don’t know what the problem is.”

Van Gisbergen admitted fault in the kerb strike at Turn 10, but acknowledged his poor luck once the session was halted.

The two-time champion managed to qualify third in the following session.

He returned on Friday and qualified third and sixth for Races 8 and 9 respectively.

"We planned to come in during the session to change tyres, but then we got a red flag without registering a lap, so that was really unlucky,” he said.

"We bounced back in Qualifying 2 and managed to get P3 which was good.

"The new surface and the new layout is awesome. The track overall is tricky and it’s easy to make simple mistakes which can be quite detrimental.

"I made a few mistakes today and need to be better myself, but lucky we have a few more days out there.”

Van Gisbergen holds a 67-point lead over Anton De Pasquale, who will launch from second for Friday’s Race 6.

The race will commence at 2:20pm AEST.