Nick Percat Sydney SuperNight Preview 

Hey everyone,

We are into a new supercar season which is really really exciting and for me, returning to Walkinshaw Andretti United feels like I am coming home. It’s been a very exciting off season. I used the offseason to recharge and relax with the family after a very busy end to 2021.

I’ve spent a lot of time with the team on the lead into the test day which we had at Winton a few weeks ago. This gave me my first chance to drive car 2 and spend a day learning the way WAU works. My first impressions of the car had me quite surprised by how different it felt to my BJR car, which I am glad about. This car has new characteristics for me to learn and strengths in different areas to what I am used to.

My first weekend with the team, I’m looking for a nice clean weekend. I have a lot to learn with the new package and the way my new engineer Geoff runs the car. I was happy to see the format come out as X2 300km races. This gives me plenty of time to understand what this car needs and what I need to do to maximise it.

My teammate Chaz is fast and is still riding the exciting wave of the Bathurst win. It’s a very exciting time at the team, I can feel the confidence in the guys and girls, we feel like we have the ingredients to get great results and we are excited that Sydney Motorsport Park is round 1. It’s a circuit that is extremely difficult to get the cars perfect, so this will be a massive test for all of us, to see if the work in the offseason has given us the gains we are hoping for!

This weekend you will see Supercars back to long races. The format is more of a traditional format which allows more strategy to come into play. We will be adding fuel in the stops which adds a fun element to the race and trying to gain track position. We are also running on Soft and Super Soft compound tyres. The races are long which means from the drivers seat you need to be kind of the car and tyres to make sure you can go the distance. Saturday night is set to be a great way to start the 2022 championship by racing under lights, I always think the cars look great in the dark and gives the fans and viewers at home a chance to see the brakes glowing and flames out the exhaust pipes!

I want to take a moment to thank all of you for the continued support. This year marks some special millstones for all of us. For Coates and Morris, we are returning to where it all began with Walkinshaw Andretti United, we have been working together since 2011 and it has been such a fun journey and I feel like we are home! To the team at Timken, you have been such great supporters of mine since 2017 when we started this partnership. I am excited to see where we take the next chapter together.

As usual you can tune into the coverage on Fox Sports 506 and catch up with how I am going across my social media pages!

Cheers Nick