Waters monsters to maiden 2025 pole

By Thomas Miles

Date posted: 21 February 2025

Cameron Waters has picked up from where he left off by taking the first pole position of the 2025 Supercars season in emphatic style.

Despite limited practice and running on the new Soft tyres, Waters was close to perfect, topping both segments of qualifying for the first ever Friday Supercars season opener in Australia.

The #6 Tickford Mustang’s 1:28.6908 was a comfortable 0.2544s clear of Broc Feeney, who was the lone Camaro in the top five that is made up of Matt Payne, Brodie Kostecki and Thomas Randle.

Andre Heimgartner, Ryan Wood, Chaz Mostert, Bryce Fullwood and impressive rookie Kai Allen completed the top 10, which did not include reigning champion Will Brown, who will start 11th.

Waters was the qualifying king of 2024 and has started 2025 in ominous fashion.

“Every time you get a new set of tyres you find a little bit of lap time don’t you,” Waters said.

“That car was hooked up and massive credit to the boys and girls at Tickford.

“Any race car just tries to find the grip limit and the car is working well with the tyre.

“Good to get the first pole of the year and we did a race run earlier and the car was pretty speedy as well so we will see what happens.”

Qualifying 1

With only half an hour of practice and limited Soft tyre running under their belts, there were plenty of unknowns ahead of the opening qualifying session of 2025.

However, the drivers were on it straight away, diving into the 1m29s at the first time of asking.

Feeney fired the purple first sector of the opening flying laps but Waters was faster across the rest of the lap.

His 1:29.3639 was the early benchmark as Feeney was only driver within three tenths with Wood and Mostert best of the rest.

Le Brocq also showed strong speed early in the lap, recording a new opening sector benchmark, but could not carry that momentum through the rest of the lap to be ninth and on the bubble.

After the opening stints there was an even split of Camaros and Mustangs in the top 10.

But only one run was left and for those in the knockout zone, the sun came out at the worst possible time with two minutes left.

Sitting 23rd, Golding appeared to be the man who would make the first move.

The PremiAir driver set the new session best first sector and was looking to make a big jump, only for it all to amount to nothing at the end of the lap.

As Golding approached the final two corners, he encountered Macauley Jones warming his tyres at Turn 10.

The pair almost made contact and Golding had to back out of his lap, leaving him down in 24th on the grid.

Jones was unsighted and went to visit the PremiAir garage to personally apologise, but Golding was nowhere to be seen. The #96 is under investigation.

Kai Allen impressed in his first Supercars qualifying. Image: DMAC Photography

Those who were no impacted were Wood, Mostert and Payne, who demoted Feeney to fifth and ensure it was a Ford top four.

Leading the Mustang charge was Waters, who lowered the marker to 1:29.1242 to make sure he ended Q1 as the undisputed leader by two tenths.

BJR teammates Bryce Fullwood and Heimgartner made late improvements to seal their tickets to Q2 in eighth and 10th, separated by impressive rookie Allen.

These moves proved costly for Brown, who locked up at Turn 8 on his final run, leaving the #1 to start the opening race from 11th.

Others to drop out of the 10 in the final minutes were Le Brocq and Percat, while practice pace setter Anton De Pasquale could only manage 15th.

Qualifying 2

Brodie Kostecki put the #38 on the second row in his first DJR qualifying session. Image: Peter Norton

Suddenly there were only 10 cars and eight minutes left to decide the first pole of the season.

Feeney again started the lap strong, going purple in the first split, but he was only just ahead of Waters, who was faster around corporate hill.

By the end of the lap out was no match as Waters’ blistering 1:28.6908 was more than two tenths clear of Feeney.

They were the only drivers to record a 1m28s time on their first attempts with Payne best of the rest ahead of Kostecki and Randle.

Broc Feeney flew the flag for the Camaros. Image: DMAC Photography

Mostert was the only member of the top 10 to back out of the opening flyer.

He waited an extra lap, but could only climb to eighth when he had a crack with two minutes left.

This proved to be the last moment of the session as everyone had dived into the lane, creating a quiet end to an intense session.

The stage is set for the first ever Friday Supercars season opener in Australia under lights at 19.50 AEDT.

Image: DMAC Photography

Supercars Sydney 500 Round 1 Race 1 Qualifying results

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