NICK Percat is fourth in the Supercars drivers’ championship after two rounds – and he sees no reason why he can’t keep Matt Stone Racing up the front by season’s end.
Percat enters this weekend’s ITM Taupō Super400 as the most recent race winner, following his Albert Park heroics to defeat Triple Eight duo Will Brown and Broc Feeney.
Rejuvenated after his off-season switch from Walkinshaw Andretti United, Percat has recorded top 10 finishes in each of the six races thus far in 2024.
Now, the challenge is to keep the momentum rolling.
“One hundred percent,” Percat told V8 Sleuth.
“I can’t see why we wouldn’t. The car was really good at testing at Ipswich, very good at Bathurst, very good at Grand Prix – so you have got three very, very different tracks – so yeah, every time I think about going racing in this car I get really excited.”
So, this form is legit? Percat was in four successive seasons a top 10 championship guy at Brad Jones Racing; is top five really within reach with MSR?
“The car, to be honest if it keeps rolling out the way it has the first three times I’ve driven it, I can’t see why we can’t still be in a very strong position at the end of the year,” he replied.
“The team are working so hard at the workshop, building a pitstop car, doing pitstop practice many times a day.
“All the one-, two-percent things that Matt (Stone, team owner) wanted to improve on at the end of last year, it’s all happened.
“The boys are out there practicing pitstops so they’re properly getting ready for different scenarios. This weekend pitstops are obviously very important without a fuel drop, so all the little things I think will help us continue to be at the front.”
Percat, who is yet to lap the Taupō circuit, has kept busy away from the track this year running his JND Racing kart team.
He admits the program has accidentally provided a good distraction for his own driving.
“I like being busy, definitely. I think it’s very easy to get caught up on a bit of understeer or a bit of this or that, but I’m too busy to really worry about it,” said the #10 Bendix Camaro driver.
“I’m just doing the karting stuff and it keeps my mind really active into how I drive the car and stuff like that, as crazy as it may sound.
“Because when I’m taking the karts to different tracks and thinking of the way to run the car, it keeps my mind thinking of stuff in the race car as well.”
Practice at Taupō begins Friday 10:55am AEST (12:55pm local time).
