Waters focusing forward after Bathurst battles

High hopes surrounded the championship hopes of Cameron Waters and Tickford in 2024, but it suffered a tough start at Bathurst.

After a weekend that featured near misses, offs, lost wheels and a “lack of rear end grip” meant Waters heads to the Australian Grand Prix already 192 points behind leader Will Brown.

Bad luck surrounded the Monster Mustang on the Saturday, having qualified a disappointing 20th, despite being on track to securing a possible Shootout berth, only for the lap to be disrupted by Matt Payne going off.

Things went from bad to worse when Waters arrived at Griffins Bend and the spindle broke, sending the front left wheel to go on a joyride in the wrong direction through turn 2 in shades of 2005.

The 11-time race winner hoped to bounce back on Sunday, but the pace never arrived at Bathurst.

Waters could only qualify 18th and finish 16th in another tough race and as a result he starts his title pursuit down in 20th in the standings.

Tickford owner Rod Nash eventually revealed Waters struggled for support from the rear end of his Mustang in the final race.

Despite the lead car significantly struggling, Tickford could still carry plenty of confidence after Thomas Randle stormed to a solid fourth place in race 2.

Waters, who also revealed he was under the weather at Mount Panorama, said the team is determined to bounce back from the Bathurst 500 at Albert Park next weekend.

“Obviously Bathurst was not a great weekend. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I was pretty sick as well,” Waters told Supercars.com.

“But the vibe of the team is still pretty upbeat and everyone is working hard to make sure we bounce back at the Grand Prix. We’re looking forward.

“But there were also good moments. Tom did an awesome job on Sunday in Bathurst, so that was great and it will be good to learn from that one as well.

“We’ll take that into the Grand Prix. Obviously it is a bit of a different event back on Soft tyre with no pit stops and things like that.

“So, a much different weekend, we are just gonna have to really rely on trying to roll out strong and I think we can do that.”

On his Bathurst battles, Waters reflected he is not even thinking about what it has done to his championship chances.

“I’m not interested in the points situation at the moment,” he said.

“Bathurst was a bad weekend, but it is a really long year. 

“We will just focus on being up the front, finishing races, and getting as many points as possible.

“If we do that, I think after a few rounds, the order will have shaken up a little bit more and I’ll back closer to the front.

“It’s about focusing on each race as it comes.”

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