In the lead up to the 2022 season opener, Matt Stone Racing have undergone an engineering department restructure, locking in 5 full-time engineers for the upcoming season.
This restructure see’s MSR expand its engineering department by promoting from within and welcoming a few new faces to the full-time fold.
Heading up the team’s engineering department for the 2022 season are Jack Bellotti and Chris Stuckey. Jack made an impressive start as a race engineer in 2021, recording multiple top 15 race results, including two top 10’s, and qualifying on the second row of the grid in Tasmania, all in his first year.
“Continuing with Jack Bellotti after what was a great first season as a race engineer, brings great continuity for the MSR engineering team, and the introduction of Chris Stuckey really adds the experience and support that we need to take it to the next level.” Said MSR team owner Matt Stone.
Chris Stuckey joins the team on a full-time basis off the back of a year which saw him engineer for MSR on and off throughout the 2021 season. Having already worked with the team, Stuckey has quickly become a valued member of MSR, and the 13 years of race engineering experience that he brings with him is energising.
When asked about his highlights since being involved in Supercars, Chris made mention of the following three results as his most memorable moments: 1st at Clipsal 500 in 2016 with Nick Percat, 3rd at Bathurst in 2016 with Nick Percat, and 2nd overall for the round at Newcastle in 2017 with Lee Holdsworth.
With our race engineers locked in, Matt Stone Racing are also excited to confirm our 2022 driver, engineer pairings with Jack Le Brocq joining forces with Jack Bellotti, and teammate Todd Hazelwood partnering up with Chris Stuckey.
“We did an in-depth review of our incoming driver’s and engineers to try and decide the best pairings that would get the optimal results, not just for each individual driver, but for the whole team.
“We are very happy with the outcome that we’ve got, and the pairings that we have decided, and we believe it will bring on a very strong 2022 and beyond.
Throughout the year, Jack and Chris will be supported by data engineers Marc Mastrodomenico and Hamish Pemberton. Marc who started with MSR at the beginning of 2021 will work alongside Stuckey, while newcomer Hamish will work with Bellotti. Much like Stuckey, Hamish has over 10 years of data engineer experience in Supercars and supporting categories across Australia and New Zealand. In 2021, he stepped up and engineered Shane Van Gisbergen, Shane Smollen and Robert Rubis to victory in the Bathurst 6 hour.
In addition to our main game engineers, Mitch Bennett who has come up through MSR over the past 3 years, will make the transition into a full-time support category engineering position. Bennett will be mentored by none other than Glenn Seton as he learns the ropes of taking on an engineering role. He will predominately look after the Super2 category and work closely with Aaron Seton and a second MSR Super2 driver, yet to be named, while Glenn will continue to oversee all support category engineering decisions as he did in 2021 and remain as Super3 engineer for Jason Gomersall.
“As we expand our engineering team and build some redundancies for the future, we are investing in youth by training up multiple data and support category engineers, guys that we will see enter the main game in future years.
Matt Stone Racing now continue preparations for their upcoming pre-season test day ahead of the Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight season opener in March.
