Percat at a loss over Taupō 'nightmare'

Nick Percat and Matt Stone Racing have been left scrambling for answers after a disastrous weekend at the ITM Taupō Super 440.

Whilst Cameron Hill continued his career-best Supercars form with a strong Top Ten Shootout performance and a fine drive to second on Sunday, the 2011 Bathurst winner was left down at the back of the grid.

Percat failed to qualify inside the top 20 for any of the three races held in New Zealand last weekend, and finshed 15th in Race 9 on the Super Soft tyre, but struggled on the Soft tyre in Races 8 and 10.

A two-time race winner in 2024 in his first season with MSR, Percat knew that his weekend fate was sealed in the opening laps of the weekend during Friday practice.

"It was a nightmare, I knew after the first three laps of practice that there was something not going well," Percat said on SEN's Mornings with Matt White.

"I said to my engineer, 'Yeah this is not ideal, I feel that we're going to be in for a shocking weekend.'

"It was frustrating, because obviously the cars were fast with Cam, you would expect both cars to be inside the top 10 when one's capable of fighting for the win."

Percat also said that whilst he salvaged what he could amid the chaos of the 120km sprint races on Saturday, there was little he could do to salvage anything on Sunday.

"The two Saturday races were about not getting involved in other people's issues, just trying to look after the tyre and salvage a result from being smarter, which we did in the second race," he added.

Having entered the weekend as the driver on the Finals bubble in 10th, Percat tumbled down to 14th in points at the completion of Race 10, and now finds himself 117 points away from a potential Finals berth,

Save for a repeat of his 2024 form at the Australian Grand Prix, scoring two podiums, it has been a difficult start to 2025 for Percat, who swapped out of a brand-new chassis into his 2024 car after a difficult Sydney 500.

Both Percat and the team are uncertain as to where Percat's severe lack of pace stemmed from, especially given Hill's recent purple patch, but is nonetheless looking forward to returning to the scene of his second 2024 win at Symmons Plains.

"We're not 100% sure, but to be one, one-and-a-half seconds off the pace, it's not a thing in Supercars, so obviously there's something going on," he said.

"It wasn't for lack of trying on the weekend. From my side, it was every session trying to drive the car different; different style, different techniques, lines.

"And then from the boys' side on the car, each night they were going through everything, trying to find it, recalibrate things, triple-checking things.

"But they'll get the car back and go through everything again and see if there's something that's popped up, I've got full faith in MSR and the way they put their cars together.

"I won't even ask if anything was found, we'll just rock up to Tassie and go again."

The 2025 Repco Supercars Championship continues at the Snowy River Caravans Tasmania Super 440 from May 9-11. Tickets for the event are on sale now.