Championship top five still the target for Percat

Nick Percat is adamant that a top five finish in the 2024 Supercars Championship is well within reach heading into the business end of the season.

Percat has experienced something of a career revival since joining Matt Stone Racing at the start of the year, snapping an almost four-year winless drought at Albert Park.

The five-time race winner has been in and around the top five for most of the year, however has slipped back to ninth in points entering this weekend in Tasmania.

However, MSR carry strong Symmons Plains form into this weekend, including front row starts for Jack Le Brocq in the past two seasons, giving Percat plenty of motivation for this weekend.

“My mindset and goals haven't really changed,” the 2011 Bathurst 1000 winner said to Supercars.com when asked if a top five championship finish was still a possibility.

“We qualified really well at Eastern Creek but I got terrible starts, which put us on the back foot in the races. But the car was fast, which is important.

“We now head to Tasmania, which has been a happy hunting ground for MSR pretty much every time they've been there. So I'm hoping whatever they do transpires into good results again.”

A return to form would set up a return to Bathurst in October, where both Percat and teammate Cameron Hill came out firing at the season opening Thrifty Bathurst 500 in February.

When asked if he expects to be strong at Bathurst once again, where he will pair with Dylan O’Keeffe in the Bendix Camaro, Percat replied, “100 percent.

“Our cars were really good there, but to be honest, I didn't really know what I was doing the way I was driving it at that point of the year!

“I'm looking forward to getting back there, and we’ll have a shiny new car for the enduros too. I think we're doing everything we can to put our best foot forward and get a good result.”

The new car Percat refers to the chassis designated MSR-005, which was initially being built as a wildcard car, rumoured to be driven by MSR enduro recruit Cameron Crick, though those plans didn’t come to fruition.

The new chassis will be the third Gen3 chassis built by MSR, with Percat looking forward to getting his hands on the new car for the Penrite Oil Sandown 500.

The upcoming change in chassis comes as Percat has struggled with a crack in his current chassis in recent rounds, though that issue has been remedied.

"We've had a car there sitting there all year. There was no rush, the plan was always around a debut at Sydney, Tassie, Sandown, somewhere there, depending on workload for the team," he said.

“The little cracks we found were actually in the rear clip, not the main chassis, so that's all obviously fixed. This is a brand new car from top to bottom, so it'll be really good.”

Before the endurance season begins, Percat is expecting a fierce battle at this weekend’s NED Whisky Tasmania SuperSprint, the final sprint event of the season.

The short Symmons Plains circuit punishes the smallest of mistakes, and Percat has joined several drivers who have identified qualifying as a key component of the weekend.

“It's so tight. The field is just so close," Percat explained.

“I’d like to think we can fight for the podium. That’s the same going to every round. We keep going there to obviously try and win.

“There are some pretty form guys at the moment, but I'm looking forward to the racing down there. It’s a brutal race and qualifying session. It doesn't take much to look like a hero or be a zero."

The NED Whisky Tasmania SuperSprint begins this Friday August 16. Tickets are on sale now.