What brought Percat undone in Townsville finale

Nick Percat arrived in Townsville with a new contract extension with Matt Stone Racing, but that was where the joy ended as the veteran encountered two troubled races.

Percat started 14th and came home 21st on Saturday after being caught in a three-wide sandwich with Brodie Kostecki and Anton De Pasquale.

He qualified 14th again on Sunday, before steering rack issues hampered the #10 Bendix Camaro. It came after teammate Cameron Hill suffered rack problems on Friday.

It was a brutal weekend for Percat, who entered the weekend fourth in the championship and 498 points from the championship lead. He is now ninth, 573 points down.

“We’ve just had one of those days you put down to a bad day of motorsport," the 2011 Bathurst winner said.

"We had a bit of an issue with the steering — kind of realised on lap 2 I was in trouble, so just brought the car home to get some team points and championship points and survived.

"It was 88 laps of just hanging out and cutting laps of Townsville. Could be worse, but not the result we wanted. We’ll bounce back at SMP and go again.

MSR had something to smile about, however, with Hill powering through the field for the second day in a row. Hill recovered from a spin early in Saturday's race to finish 10th before motoring from 19th to ninth on Sunday.

“A good weekend for us, the first time we have scored a pair of top 10s. That’s an awesome result for us," the Canberran said.

"We had a really fast race car and we were able to make some great ground and make the strategy work for us by going longer early. It paid off, so we just need to figure out how to qualify up a bit higher because with that sort of race pace we can definitely fight for podiums.

"When we’re starting that far back it’s a bit harder. Really happy with the weekend — thanks to Matt Stone Racing and Personalised Plates Queensland."