Waters and Tickford encouraged by race pace
Cam Waters and Tickford once again walked away from a Supercars round in 2024 wondering what could have been, but were pleased by their race pace.
Despite having his fair share of dramas and bad luck, Waters still fought hard enough to secure 10th in the chase for the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy.
The Monster Mustang showed great speed with Waters snatching his opportunity in the wet to take pole position.
After two tough rounds it appeared to be the big chance for the #6 to finally turn its season around, but there was heartbreak just metres after the start line due to a tangle with Tim Slade.
Despite being at the back with damage, Waters put his head down and soldered on the wet track rising all the way back from 23rd to eighth after 60 hard fought laps.
The Mildura racer later labelled it as one of his best ever comebacks.
“You know I went from first to last before Turn 1 and then, with a damaged car, we got back to eighth and got some really solid points,” Waters said.
“So, that was obviously a really good race for us.
“I think probably one that kind of got away.
“We definitely had a speedy car and if it was straight I think we probably could have won it, but It is what it is.”
On Sunday Waters just missed out on the Shootout but still rose three positions to get ninth and record back to back top 10s.
Although luck has largely been absent from the Tickford leader, he is starting to string together a consistent set of results with five top 10s from the last six races.
This is why Tickford’s Rod Nash is encouraged by the speed of his Mustangs over a race distance.
“We’ve got fast cars and that’s the real positive,” he said.
“It was the first weekend where we weren’t sitting in the engineering meetings looking for pace.
“Both drivers worked well to recover from problems in the races, but we didn’t have the strategy on Sunday.
“We’ve got something to work with now. We’ve got to do a better job on set-ups, but we’re definitely on the right trajectory with our car speed.
“We like Perth, so I’d like to think we have something good to work with for the next meeting. “We’ll definitely put a lot of focus into continuing our improvement.”
Image: Mark Horsburgh
Taupo Super400 schedule (all times AEST)
Friday, April 19
Practice: 1: C. Mostert 1:26.4937 2: M. Payne +0.0318 3: W. Davison +0.0508
Saturday, April 20
Qualifying Race 7: 1: M. Payne 1:27.9684 2: A. De Pasquale +0.0940 3: C. Mostert +0.1669
Top 10 Shootout: 1: C. Waters 1:34.7415 2: W. Brown +0.5011 3: A. Heimgartner +0.5374
Race 7 (60 laps): 1: A. Heimgartner 2: W. Davison +1.1012 3: A. De Pasquale +2.5641
Sunday, April 21
Qualifying Race 8: 1: A. De Pasquale 2: C. Mostert +0.0272 3: W. Brown +0.0292
Top 10 Shootout: 1: M. Payne 1:26.8173 2: B. Feeney +0.0126 3: B. Kostecki +0.0306
Race 8 (60 laps): 1: W. Brown 2: B. Feeney +3.3585 3: A. De Pasquale +14.2612
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