THERE is now a big enough sample size of data to call it: Matt Stone Racing has become first-half specialists.<\/p>\n
There is no doubting the Yatala squad has developed superbly to go from genuine backmarkers to a team that has won races in three successive Supercars seasons (something which none other than Triple Eight, Grove and Tickford can also boast).<\/p>\n
The thing that\u2019s holding them back from more? An inability to maintain form throughout the second half of the year.<\/p>\n
If we split the past four seasons into two segments \u2013 February to June (i.e. up to Darwin inclusive, or pre-Townsville) and July to December (i.e. post-Darwin) \u2013 there is a clear trend.<\/p>\n
In the pre-Townsville block for 2022-25, MSR averages 258.23 points per round.<\/p>\n
In the post-Darwin block, that figure plummets to 206.11 per round.<\/p>\n
The drop-off has actually been more substantial in three of the four seasons, with 2024 the partial exception per the below numbers.<\/p>\n
SeasonPoints per round Feb-JunPoints per round Jul-Dec2022236.67154.572023268.6207.432024296.62762025239.17186.43<\/p>\n
It should be noted though there was also a 2024 dip, just that it came later \u2013 the team averaged 304.25 per round pre-enduros and 245.25 thereafter.<\/p>\n
MSR had sought to address its enduro fortunes by making a splash in the co-driver market last year, signing proven hand Tim Slade<\/a> and rising star Cameron McLeod<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reliability issues though haunted the team through the latter months of the season (including a Bathurst engine failure for Nick Percat<\/a>\/Slade) at a time when it became clear driver turnover was imminent.<\/p>\n It will head into the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship with Jack Le Brocq<\/a> and Zach Bates<\/a>, and paddock-wide expectations that its Camaros should be speedy at places like Albert Park and Symmons Plains.<\/p>\n But can it keep the points flowing into and through the enduros and finals? That\u2019s the big question for MSR to answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THERE is now a big enough sample size of data to call it: Matt Stone Racing has become…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389957,"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-389956","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\/389956","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=389956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}