{"id":267899,"date":"2025-11-07T03:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T03:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/267899\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T03:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T03:11:15","slug":"matt-stone-racing-signs-zach-bates-for-supercars-2026-seat-silly-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/267899\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Stone Racing signs Zach Bates for Supercars 2026 seat, silly season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2747-Zach-Bates\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ZACH Bates<\/a> will get his first full-time shot at the Repco Supercars Championship next year with Matt Stone Racing.<\/p>\n<p>Bates will join <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1181-Jack-Le Brocq\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jack Le Brocq<\/a> in an overhauled driver line-up, with the 2024 Super2 title winner confirmed to take over the Bendix-backed Camaro from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/percat-to-retire-from-supercars-full-time-racing\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the retiring Nick Percat<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m absolutely thrilled to be joining Matt Stone Racing and stepping up to the Supercars Championship full-time next year,\u201d said Bates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a dream come true.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMSR has a great track record with young drivers, and the opportunity to represent Bendix Racing in my rookie season is really special. I can\u2019t wait to get stuck in and learn as much as I can from the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Zach-Bates-Bendix-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-240103\"  \/>Pic: Supplied<\/p>\n<p>Team owner Matt Stone said: \u201cZach is an exceptional young talent and we\u2019ve been watching his progress closely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s shown maturity, speed and a great attitude \u2013 everything we look for in a driver.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re excited to give him his shot in the Bendix Racing Camaro and continue developing the next generation of Supercars drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 21-year-old becomes the fifth rookie confirmed to graduate onto the 2026 grid.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/v8-sleuth-magazine-issue-1?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/V8Sleuth-Magazine-1_91f7f282-3ced-4ad8-9031-10de31dcd2de_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cNick put the Bendix team on the map with some high-profile wins and we are looking forward to seeing Zach on the podium,\u201d added Bendix CEO George Kyriakopoulos.<\/p>\n<p>While Le Brocq has confirmed to drive the #4 next year, it has not been specified whether the #10 will carry across from Percat to Bates.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/how-the-2026-supercars-grid-now-looks\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">There is now just one 2026 seat left up for grabs<\/a>: the Blanchard Racing Team drive currently occupied by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1568-Aaron-Cameron\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aaron Cameron<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Cameron is the firm favourite to be renewed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ZACH Bates will get his first full-time shot at the Repco Supercars Championship next year with Matt Stone&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-267899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}