ALARM COST PERCAT SHOT AT PODIUM

Nick Percat stormed through the field yesterday at The Bend Motorsport Park, charging from last on the grid to finish in fifth position, however he explained how a warning light cost him a shot at a podium on the final lap of the race.

Percat was one of three cars in the field to start on slicks along with two of his teammates Macauley Jones and Todd Hazelwood, marching through the field in greasy conditions.

As his opposition stopped early for dry tyres Percat continued to pound out fast laps and was still setting purple sectors right at the end of his lengthy opening stint.

This meant that after his compulsory stop Percat emerged in the fight for third position with Dick Johnson racing driver Anton de Pasquale and Tickford racer Cameron Waters.

Sitting fourth on the final lap, Percat on fresh tyres was applying the pressure to de Pasquale, however, around Turn 12 the South Australian admitted he was distracted.

“The one off I had for the whole race was late on the last lap so that’s a bit annoying,” Percat told Auto Action.

“I had an alarm come on the dash and it lit up red just in just the wrong spot.

“I just dragged my eye down, touched some water (on the road) went wide and the water got me. I thought it might have been a tyre pressure light so I glanced down and I shouldn’t have.”

Nevertheless, aside from maybe the dominant winner Andre Heimgartner, the best drive came from the South Australian.

Alarm cost Nick Percat shot at podium – Images: InSyde Media

Percat explained that he made the final call to start the race on slicks and how he executed the strategy.

“We qualified terribly but that wasn’t a true representation that wasn’t where we should be,” he said.

“I love slicks on a greasy track like that, so we’re on the grid, there was a bit of toing and froing and I said I want to be on the slicks.

“I just kind of did my thing and bided my time to start with to make sure I could save tyre life and didn’t spear off the road.

“Then once everyone started pitting we just got on with it and the car was mega and the strategy was good.

“The only issue we had was the radio, I couldn’t understand what AE (Andrew Edwards, his engineer) was saying.”

All four Brad Jones Racing cars qualified at the back of the grid yesterday but did not run a dry setup in the wet session. The outfit will investigate what occurred but Percat is confident that if they qualify in the top 10 they will be able to fight for victory.

“No (we didn’t run a dry quali set up), we’re still working on that because I’m not sure if there’s a tyre issue with the tyres we ran because normally our cars are quite fast in the wet,” he said.

“In practice and in the race, I was in the top two every lap when it was wet, so we’ll have to do some research on that.

“The tyre life was mega, and the car was obviously fast, we just have to qualify well, we’ll worry about the race if we can qualify inside the top 10, then we’ll be alright.”

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