Cameron Hill claimed a career-best fifth while Nick Percat was a brilliant sixth in the season-opening race of the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship at Bathurst.
Both the Tyrepower Racing and Bendix Racing cars led the race at points, with the double top 6 putting Matt Stone Racing second in the Teams’ Championship.
Following a stellar qualifying performance, including his maiden Top 10 Shootout appearance, Hill started from an impressive fourth on the grid, also a career-best.
The Canberran had a good opening lap and moved up to third where he held station, then taking the lead as the pit stop sequence began.
However, a small mishap at Turn 1 while running long cost Hill a few seconds, rejoining seventh after the first round of stops.
He fought back with a solid second half of the race to take the chequered flag fifth, his best-ever result in Supercars to kick start his second season.
Percat gained two spots to sixth, after qualifying eighth, with the Bendix Racing #10 running an aggressive strategy.
It proved a good move thanks to solid pace from Percat in his maiden race weekend with the MSR team and his return to the GM brand.
Hill and Percat were right on Richie Stanaway’s rear wing in the final few laps, but a late-race Safety Car foiled their chance to vault more positions.
Sunday features another 20-minute qualifying session followed by a Top 10 Shootout and a second 250km race.
QUOTEBOARD
Cameron Hill – Driver of #4:
“I got a mega start and got up to third; was running along strong in the early phase and started to stretch the gap to the cars behind. The two Triple Eight cars ahead of us pitted and I was then in the lead of the race and we were trying to go long to make the later stints a bit shorter. Unfortunately I made a small mistake and almost threw it off, but recovered and had to make a few passes after that. We regained some ground and got back up to P5. It’s a personal best for me, Nick finished sixth, and we’re second in the Teams’ Championship after Day 1, so it’s been an awesome start for the team.”
Nick Percat – Driver of #10:
“We qualified eighth and finished sixth; great strategy by the Bendix Racing crew — to move forward in these races is hard. We went fairly aggressive and went long and had two really quick stints home which was really good fun. When you’ve got grip and a light fuel load, the car feels great and you can throw some big passes on other cars and it all went well. If the last Safety Car didn’t happen I thought Cam could have potentially got fourth and I would have been fifth, but Day 1, we’ll take that. It’s definitely a positive start; it’s probably one of my best first races of the season, so if we back it up tomorrow it will be good to leave here with a really solid haul of points. It makes the first half of the season much easier when you can hit the ground running.”
