CHALLENGING GOLD COAST WEEKEND 🫤

A return to the Concrete Jungle at the Supercars Gold Coast 500 proved a weekend that got away from Matt Stone Racing’s Nick Percat, whose Bendix Chevrolet Camaro showed plenty of race pace, however, the results sheet didn’t reflect the fact.

Wrong place, wrong time was the story of the weekend, with the MSR crew faced with repairs on the #10 after Percat rounded a blind corner, and tangled with a stricken Will Brown, causing damage to his car during Saturday’s qualifying session.

Lining up for Race 21 in 19th position, Percat would piece together a strong 85 laps to climb his way up into P12, making a string of passes during the gruelling temperatures to salvage points towards his top ten position in the championship.

Rolling straight into qualifying early Sunday morning, the MSR Camaro continued to struggle for one lap pace around the Surfers Paradise layout, with Percat mustering a lap that was again good enough to secure 19th place on the grid for Race 22.

As is the story at times starting deep inside the pack, drivers become prone to other racer's incidents, as everyone is jostling desperately to make positions early.

Unfortunately, this was again the case in Sunday’s race, with Percat involved in a multi-car crash on the opening lap, sustaining damage that would need attention from the MSR crew, essentially spelling the end of his race. 

Rallying inside the pits, the team would get Percat back out on track, and the #10 would post the fastest lap time of the race, showing how much potential there was in the car in race trim. Despite the speed, the deficit was too large, and Percat would finish in 22nd place.

Following the Gold Coast weekend, Percat sits in eighth place in the 2024 Supercars Championship Standings, with one race for the season left to run at his home race in Adelaide.

Nick Percat: “It’s always good to be back on the Gold Coast, it’s one of the more intense races of the year with not a lot of margin for error. We struggled to unlock one-lap car speed this weekend, although in race trim we were fairly speedy. Disappointing to get caught up in some incidents, although the silver lining was that we had the fastest car on Sunday, just nothing really to show for it. We’ll put this one behind us, and roll on Adelaide.”