{"id":753951,"date":"2026-06-23T00:34:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T00:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/753951\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T00:34:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T00:34:21","slug":"supercars-silly-season-matt-stone-racings-stance-on-jack-le-brocq-zach-bates-for-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/753951\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars silly season: Matt Stone Racing’s stance on Jack Le Brocq, Zach Bates for 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"

MATT Stone Racing\u2019s eponymous owner has expressed his desire to stick with an unchanged driver line-up for the 2027 Repco Supercars Championship, but stopped short of making a definitive statement.<\/p>\n

MSR has over the years had a knack of inevitably finding itself in silly season equations.<\/p>\n

It has only twice in its history gone without off-season change, those occasions being 2018\/19 (Todd Hazelwood<\/a>) and 2024\/25 (Nick Percat<\/a>, Cameron Hill<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Yatala squad had a double swap for this year, bringing Jack Le Brocq<\/a> back and handing rookie Zach Bates<\/a> an opportunity. No contract term was originally specified for either.<\/p>\n

With more than two-thirds of the grid having guaranteed 2027 deals already in place, the scrutiny is sure to intensify around those without public assurances.<\/p>\n

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

Bates, who has been described by Mark Winterbottom as the best of the five first-year drivers in the 2026 field<\/a>, is understood to have attracted interest from at least one rival team.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, Matt Stone had this to say to V8 Sleuth regarding next season: \u201cFor us, we know our plans, we have them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very happy with our line-up and we\u2019re very happy with the momentum we\u2019re building.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we, as a little bit of a policy, decided that the length of our arrangements is not something we\u2019re going to broadcast. I think it makes more sense for us to keep that internal, learning from previous encounters.<\/p>\n

\"\"Zach Bates and Jack Le Brocq at a Darwin signing session. Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re very comfortable with our line-up and our direction over the next couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six rounds in, Le Brocq is right in the thick of the finals fight, while Bates has shown plenty of promising signs.<\/p>\n

As the on-track action edges towards the enduros these next few months, expect the silly season to tick along in the background.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, the 2026 grid was not finalised until mid-November last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MATT Stone Racing\u2019s eponymous owner has expressed his desire to stick with an unchanged driver line-up for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-753951","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\/753951","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=753951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}