{"id":881854,"date":"2026-09-06T07:46:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T07:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/881854\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T07:46:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T07:46:20","slug":"supercars-james-moffat-comments-on-dick-johnson-racing-rookie-rylan-gray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/881854\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars: James Moffat comments on Dick Johnson Racing rookie Rylan Gray"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-250-Dick-Johnson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DICK Johnson<\/a> Racing\u2019s gamble to throw a teenager in the deep end is starting to pay dividends according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-24-James-Moffat\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Moffat<\/a>, and the numbers back it up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moffat knows all about the pressure that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2773-Rylan-Gray\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rylan Gray<\/a> is facing, having himself been a rookie at DJR in 2011 \u2013 slotting in for none other than reigning champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-15-James-Courtney\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Courtney<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Through 28 races, Gray is the only Supercars full-timer yet to outqualify a teammate this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As grim as that sounds, the trajectory is very much heading in the right direction as the below graph (complete with trend line) shows.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Rylan-Gray-qualifying-graph-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-264045\"  \/>Note that Race 5 is omitted as Gray was disqualified pertaining to a technical breach<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gray has qualified inside the top 10 for five of the past eight races, with one of those exceptions being an 11th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His points hauls have been improving too, up from 74.2 per round through the opening five events to 97.75 in the past four.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFor a rookie season, it\u2019s very, very hard for Rylan to come in against a high-profile teammate in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1301-Brodie-Kostecki\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brodie Kostecki<\/a>,\u201d Moffat began on The Undercut in awarding his Castrol Performer of the Week to Gray.<\/p>\n<p>The Undercut \u2013 Ford\u2019s best Bathurst chance?<\/p>\n<p>THE Undercut returns, breaking down the latest news in the world of Supercars racing!<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAnd that has been well spoken about in maybe his lack of performances throughout the year, but I think he\u2019s really starting to find where he needs to be with how he needs to set the car up, how he needs to drive the car, how he needs to execute his race weekends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe was quick in Perth, had a couple of good results over there, but to back it up at Queensland Raceway, I think he is really starting to hit his straps.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gray will pair up with veteran Tony D\u2019Alberto for the upcoming enduros, starting with next weekend\u2019s AirTouch 500 at The Bend.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Gray-MP359622-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-264048\"  \/>Rylan Gray (right). Pic: Matthew Paul Photography<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DICK Johnson Racing\u2019s gamble to throw a teenager in the deep end is starting to pay dividends according&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":881855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-881854","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\/881854","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=881854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}