{"id":515544,"date":"2026-03-03T07:55:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T07:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515544\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T07:55:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T07:55:20","slug":"can-matt-stone-racing-do-it-again-at-albert-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515544\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Matt Stone Racing do it again at Albert Park?"},"content":{"rendered":"

TWO years running, Matt Stone Racing has stormed to victory on the world stage that is the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix support card.<\/p>\n

In 2024 it was on F1 race day as Nick Percat<\/a> outduelled a two-pronged Triple Eight attack for a stunning victory.<\/p>\n

Twelve months ago, MSR was rather dominant, headlined by a 1-2 for Cameron Hill<\/a> and Percat on the Friday.<\/p>\n

That remains the Yatala team\u2019s most recent victory. In fact, the past two Albert Park visits account for more than half of MSR\u2019s total podiums (i.e. five of nine).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Part of the MSR mission for 2026 has been to flatten out its tendency for major peaks and troughs, but can it strike again this week at Albert Park with its rejigged driver line-up of Jack Le Brocq<\/a> and Zach Bates<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis championship is so competitive and it changes so much in 12 months that anyone who thinks they\u2019re going to roll in with what they had last year and have the same results is kidding themselves,\u201d team owner Matt Stone told V8 Sleuth.<\/p>\n

To that end, you probably only need to look at Sydney Motorsport Park, where Cam Waters<\/a> went from winning every race from pole in 2025 to failing to qualify inside the top five at any point last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we\u2019re not bullish going in there,\u201d Stone continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe like the track, we understand the track. We\u2019re going to go there and we\u2019re going to try to have a repeat of last year with more, but by no means are we going to be overconfident because this championship is just so competitive.<\/p>\n

\"\"Matt Stone Racing celebrates its 1-2. Pic: Supplied\/Mark Horsburgh<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re excited going into it and looking forward to seeing what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stone believes that his team\u2019s double Top 10 Shootout appearance on the Sunday at Sydney was proof of progress at that venue, which might bode well for a happier hunting ground in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

He also revealed \u201cwe gave ourselves a big kick in the arse\u201d after a sloppy Saturday qualifying on the Car #4 side, which was in part attributed to ironing out the kinks associated with an off-season reshuffle of personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s our leeway for the year, so from here on out, no more mistakes,\u201d said Stone.<\/p>\n

Le Brocq holds seventh in the points after Round 1, while Bates is 16th despite having starred in qualifying mode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TWO years running, Matt Stone Racing has stormed to victory on the world stage that is the Formula…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-515544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515544","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=515544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}