Nick Percat believes hard work from his Brad Jones Racing squad is finally paying off after scoring the team’s first podium of the season at the CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown.
The Albury squad had endured a challenging season so far punctuated by a series of major incidents in both Supercars and Super2, requiring sizeable repairs to chassis.
However, the South Australian gave his squad much needed result with a fine drive to third behind the DJR team Penske duo of Fabian Coulthard and Scott McLaughlin in Race 11.
The result proved to be Percat’s first top-five of the year and only his fourth top 10 since joining the team from Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport.
Such has been the team’s workload following setbacks at Tasmania and the Australian Grand Prix, Percat believes the squad is only now starting to make progress in developing and unlocking speed from its Commodores.
“We went through two rounds without having written-off cars and crazy things going on, so we’ve actually been able to sit down and go through some data and look at the cars, implement some changes and I think that got us to the podium today,” said Percat.
“We didn’t test (between Winton and Hidden Valley) but we had a lot of information and a direction where we wanted to go and we’ve started that process.
“I think we’re probably two rounds behind where we should be because obviously when cars get damaged the way they have… and it wasn’t just the main game cars, it was Super2 cars, so there was a lot of workload at BJR. It wasn’t like we could suddenly make new parts when we were trying to get cars back together.
“It’s a credit to everyone back in Albury. They don’t get to enjoy the champagne, but the fab shop has been crazy busy, the paint shop’s been out of control, they all work just as hard as the guys that get to travel, so it’s a credit to what they’re doing and a credit to all those guys and girls that get to go away.”
Team-mates Tim Slade finished 11th after dropping back from fourth late in the race, while Tim Blanchard came home in 12th position.
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