Cam Waters has got his title chase off to the perfect start by winning the opening sprint race of the Repco Supercars Championship season at the Thrifty Sydney 500.
The Monster Castrol Racing driver dominated proceedings in a stunning lights-to-flag victory to lead a Ford 1-2-3 from Optus Mobil 1 Racing’s Chaz Mostert and Waters’ teammate Thomas Randle.
Penrite Racing’s Matt Payne continued the Ford reign in fourth from reigning champion Will Brown, who climbed from 11th to fifth to lead the way for Red Bull Ampol Racing as stablemate Broc Feeney was 14th following a puncture.
In a total performance, Waters was a winner by 17s and lauded his team for its performance early.
“That’s absolutely awesome, I knew we had a fast race car in qualifying, and I was pretty happy when we won the start,” said Waters.
“It was so fast out there, so massive thank you to the whole team. Wow, how different this is from 12 months ago when we had wheels falling off and I was crook. so I couldn’t be happier.
“The morale at Tickford is so good at the moment, we didn’t really lose anyone in the off season which was great, and Tommy and I work so well together, and we know we’ve fast cars, so we’re all pretty pumped.
“It’s awesome to go racing and get a win, and for Randle to be on the podium, that’s awesome for the 55 car.”
Waters won the start from Feeney, but it was Mostert making the moves early to jump from eighth to fifth and despite a superb effort in qualifying, a slow getaway for Kai Allen dropped the second Penrite Racing Mustang from 10th to 18th.
At the front, Feeney was unable to hold onto Waters as drivers began to pit on lap 5, but were soon to find out the struggle for the new tyre compounds.
Payne was one of these drivers and lost a podium slot in the closing stages to Randle as a consequence of pitting earlier.
Feeney was further delayed on lap 12 when he made a mistake and ran wide across a kerb leading to a left rear puncture and his race then turned into a recovery mission.
When Waters emerged from his stop on lap 15, he held a 1s advantage back to Payne in a failed undercut strategy and soon Mostert was a concern.
The three Mustangs of Payne, Mostert and Randle enjoyed a lively battle, but the young New Zealander was forced to drop behind the duo by the end.
Behind Brown in fifth was 2023 champion Brodie Kostecki in his first start for Shell V-Power Racing Team, a charging Andre Heimgartner driving the R&J Batteries Chevrolet Camaro, DEWALT Racing’s Anton De Pasquale from 15th, Bryce Fullwood of Middy’s Racing and Jack Le Brocq completed the top 10 in the lead Erebus Motorsport entry.
Ryan Wood dropped out of the 10, to be joined by Nick Percat, Cam Hill, Feeney, David Reynolds, Will Davison, James Golding and Richie Stanaway.
Qualifying for the Race 2 of the Repco Supercars Championship in Sydney is at 2:35pm AEDT tomorrow.