{"id":811542,"date":"2026-07-20T04:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T04:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/811542\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T04:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T04:43:14","slug":"supercars-steven-richards-reveals-lost-marcos-ambrose-stone-brothers-racing-replacement-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/811542\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars: Steven Richards reveals lost Marcos Ambrose Stone Brothers Racing replacement deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">STEVEN Richards has revealed he had an agreement in place to be Marcos Ambrose\u2019s successor at Stone Brothers Racing for 2006.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Richards famously helped SBR to victory in its first attempt at the Bathurst 1000, in 1998, before refiring his full-time Supercars career via Gibson Motorsport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By \u201905, the son of \u2018Gentleman Jim\u2019 was part of the furniture at Perkins Engineering, the combination netting regular podiums.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMidway through 2005 at LP\u2019s, Larry was great, he came to me and said \u2018mate, you need to have a look at what your options are for 2006 because I\u2019ve just been told from Castrol that they\u2019re not going to be (continuing). And if we don\u2019t have a sponsor, I can\u2019t afford to keep the team running\u2019,\u201d Richards recalled via the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Parramatta Toyota.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI said \u2018okay\u2019. So I had been into the market and I had done a deal\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That arrangement, it turns out, was with SBR to replace two-time champion Ambrose as he prepared to head Stateside in pursuit of the NASCAR bright lights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat deal was done, subject to I couldn\u2019t say anything until December 31,\u201d said Richards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And given he hadn\u2019t heard from Perkins, it\u2019d seemed the coast was clear to be released from the 2006 component of his existing contract. Until\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSomewhere later in that year, Larry has come to me and gone \u2018I\u2019ve got a sponsor\u2019\u2026 I said \u2018Larry, I\u2019ve got a deal, it\u2019s done, it\u2019s agreed, contract, it\u2019s all here\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2005-Phillip-Island-Wensley-Richards-1-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-259899\"  \/>Steven Richards won two races for Perkins Engineering in 2005, at Wanneroo and Oran Park. Pic: an1images \/ Scott Wensley<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAnd he goes \u2018Richo, it\u2019s a guaranteed deal, you can\u2019t take it\u2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo I had to ring Ross and say \u2018sorry I can\u2019t do it\u2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI would have loved to have driven with Stone Brothers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cLarry\u2019s was great, I was so hands-on there during that period, but I always thought to drive with Ross and Jimmy would have been pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As it turned out, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-15-James-Courtney\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Courtney<\/a> was signed to become Russell Ingall\u2019s new teammate at SBR, while Richards lasted just one more season at Perkins Engineering before switching to Ford Performance Racing for 2007.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STEVEN Richards has revealed he had an agreement in place to be Marcos Ambrose\u2019s successor at Stone Brothers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-811542","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\/811542","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=811542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}