Waters opens 2025 with a bang

By Thomas Miles

Date posted: 21 February 2025

Cameron Waters has started the 2025 Supercars Championship in emphatic fashion, dominating the Friday night sprint in Sydney.

The first Friday Supercars season opener in Australia soon turned into a scary movie about a green-eyed monster for much of the field as Waters enjoyed an untroubled journey to the chequered flag.

The #6 Tickford Mustang dominated from pole to the chequered flag, winning by a huge margin of 16.8s after just 26 laps of racing around Sydney Motorsport Park.

Whilst Waters retrospectively won the 2023 Newcastle opener due to Triple Eight’s disqualification, this is arguably the most convincing start to a season from Tickford in its history, surpassing the speed of Adelaide 2012.

The battle for second was the most entertaining contest, with Chaz Mostert and Thomas Randle overhauling Matt Payne on fresher tyres in the closing stages.

Randle and Payne especially put on a show, with their battle not decided until the third to last corner.

As Ford sealed the top four, reigning champion Will Brown put in a fighting drive to be the leading Camaro in fifth despite starting down in 11th.

The hard luck story was Triple Eight teammate Broc Feeney, who was safe in second before suffering a costly left rear flat.

The puncture sent Feeney to the back of the field, but he put in a spirited second stint to salvage 14th.

But even if the #88 did not have tyre troubles, there was no catching Waters, who monstered the field.

“It was so fast out there, wow how different is this from 12 months ago when wheels were falling off, so could not be happier,” Waters said.

Feeney had the better jump, but Waters had just enough grunt to edge ahead of the #88 in the rundown to Turn 1.

The battle for third was heated as Payne and Kostecki rubbed doors all the way through Turn 2 with the Kiwi winning that battle on the inside.

This put the DJR star on the defence to Mostert for the following two right handers.

After impressing in qualifying, rookie Allen was the big loser on the first lap, slipping from 10th to 18th after a slow start.

Despite a slide coming out of Corporate Hill, Brown clawed his way into the top 10.

It was a wanting opening lap, but importantly a clean one as the Tickford Mustang needed just three tours to pull more than a second on the field.

Feeney led a train of Mustangs to the sixth placed Randle, who was 2s ahead the next angry pack fronted by Fullwood.

The strategy games opened on Lap 5 where Kostecki boxed with Reynolds and Allen following him deeper in the pack.

The next contender to react was Payne and he had enough time up his sleeve to rejoin well clear of the undercutting Kostecki.

But there was drama further back in the lane as De Pasquale had a close call rejoining ahead of Fullwood in the fast lane. The stewards reviewed the moment and cleared both parties.

Determined to make up ground, Golding took the aggressive option of taking four fresh tyres, but after making the stop he found himself in a willing battle with new teammate Stanaway and lost out on cold tyres.

By Lap 10 Brown found himself under attack from Wood and the WAU youngster prevailed after some intense racing around Corporate Hill.

Triple Eight’s response was to bring the #1 into the pits and look for more pace on fresh tyres.

However, there were big dramas for his teammate Feeney.

After dropping more than 6s adrift of speedy leader Waters in 12 laps, the #88’s pursuit of victory was effectively over when it suffered a left rear puncture.

Feeney lost four spots in a flash as he was forced to a crawl to the pits with a destroyed tyre and ended up rejoining at the back of the field.

Determined to make up lost ground, he quickly mounted a fightback and started picking off rivals to claw his way towards the top 20.

The fight for second was now between Mostert and Randle, who followed each other into the lane on the same lap at close quarters.

The WAU crew won the battle in the lane as not only did the #25 retain track position, but Randle also rejoined behind De Pasquale.

The pair of Mustangs returned to the track 6s behind the undercutting Payne and Kostecki, in the most high stakes battle.

Mostert only needed a handful of laps to reel in Kostecki and get himself on the podium, but catching Payne was going to be a bigger challenge with the Kiwi still 6s up the road.

The DJR driver had little up his sleeve as a long stint went on as Brown eased his way past to snatch a top five position.

After 14 scorching laps, Waters finally boxed and Tickford delivered to ensure the #6 retained the effective lead over Payne, but only just.

However, it was no contest as Waters soon drove into the distance.

Heimgartner was the last to stop, going all the way until Lap 17 and rejoined 12th before using fresh tyres to work his way up to seventh.

The fight for second erupted with three laps to go as Mostert and Randle ganged up on Payne battling on older tyres.

Mostert launched his attack at the bottom of the hill at Turn 4 and eventually made the move stick after they battled all the way down to the Turn 8 hairpin.

This brought Randle into play and the Tickford driver tried to sneak his way down the inside, but could not find a way through.

As a result, he was on the tail of the Grove Racing Kiwi all the way until the final lap.

Patience paid off for Randle as he outfoxed Payne across the three successive right handers at the top of the circuit.

He forced the #19 wide coming out of Turn 6 and made good use of the inside line before covering at the hairpin to seal the deal.

But everyone will be talking about Waters, who has put the field on notice.

The rest of the grid will hope to respond when Supercars go racing double the distance under the Saturday stars.

Before then qualifying will take place at 14.35 AEDT.

Image: Peter Norton Epic Sports Photography

2025 Supercars Round 1 Sydney 500 Race 1 results

2025 Sydney 500

Practice 1: A. De Pasquale 1:30.0226 2: D. Reynolds +0.4742 3: J. Courtney +0.5039

Qualifying 1: C. Waters 1:28.6968 2: B. Feeney +0.2544 3: M. Payne +0.4559

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