Jones: Why new Percat deal was critical ahead of Gen3

Brad Jones says getting Nick Percat’s signature early was important as the team heads into a new era of the Repco Supercars Championship.

Yesterday it was confirmed Percat had re-signed with the team on a multi-year deal.

Next year the Supercars grid will make a mid-year changeover from Gen2 to Gen3 equipment.

For Jones, having a senior driver to lead the Albury-based team and its understanding of the next-generation Supercars was critical.

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As it stands, the team hasn’t officially made a commitment to running a Chevrolet Camaro; however, images have been released of two current BJR liveries on the new platform.

“The rest of the group are quite young,” Jones told Speedcafe.com.

“So certainly having someone experienced that we can work through with the engineering group that’s been there and done that, obviously that’s quite helpful.

“Everyone needs a team leader. That’s an important part of it also.

“The things that I like about Nick are his values, his ability to self-assess.

“He’s competitive. We’re in a very competitive business and he’s got three guys in the team that are trying to beat him.

“He has been with me the longest and he fits very well with the group.

“I feel like he’s really good for us.”

Jones explained it took very little time to get Percat to re-sign.

While opportunities were afoot elsewhere, Jones said Percat feels like he’s part of the family.

“Nick and I started discussing this in March and wanted to get it knocked over pretty early,” Jones said of the contract extension.

“I think he’s a great fit for the team. He’s more than just a driver within BJR, he’s part of the family. We did a deal really on the spot to be honest.

“Honestly, we just fit really well together. We have a great understanding. We both do exactly what we say we’re going to do. It works great.

“I’ve got a huge amount of respect for his ability and for him as a human and we fit well together. It was something that we sorted out in literally five minutes in March.”

Percat sits seventh in the drivers’ championship after the fifth event of the championship.

His next outing is scheduled to take place at the Reid Park Street Circuit across July 9-11 for the NTI Townsville 500.