Percat recounts victory lap confusion with Brown

Nick Percat encountered a unique victory lap at Albert Park, with the Matt Stone Racing driver running out of fuel after his breakthrough win.

The Matt Stone Racing driver held on to deny Red Bull Ampol Racing teammates Will Brown and Broc Feeney in Race 6.

Percat’s first win in nearly four years, however, was nearly undone by a fuel shortage, which reared its head on the cool down lap after the race.

The #10 Bendix Camaro stopped at Turn 9, with Percat waving to Brown for a push. Brown pressed on, with fellow South Australian-born driver Tim Slade giving Percat a push back to the pits.

However, Slade’s push ended before pit lane, meaning Percat stopped again and was forced to run to the podium, sans winning car.

Slade had to return to the Supercars paddock at Turn 13, but given post-race TV interviews and podium presentations were in the Formula 1 pit lane, Percat had to complete the rest of the victory lap on foot.

Speaking in the podium room after the race, both drivers laughed, given Brown thought Percat was waving to the crowd, and was going to conduct a burnout.

“Will Brown thought I was waving to the crowd ecstatically,” Percat said.

“But Sladey – [another] South Australian, me and Sladedog go way back – he figured it out pretty quickly and gave me a push back.

“Annoyingly we’re not [garaged] in pit lane, so he could only get me to Turn 13 and we rolled in from there and ran up to the podium.”

Speaking after the race, Percat's engineer Jack Bellotti said the #10 Chevrolet was right on the cusp with two laps remaining.

"Two laps to go, I knew we were going to be very tight," Bellotti told V8 Sleuth.

"And then the last corner, we were basically out of fuel and it coughed when he was weaving on the way to the chequered flag, so you can't be tighter than that."