Waters: No apologies for racing hard

Cameron Waters is not going to change his aggressive approach having been involved in two high profile incidents at the Tyrepower Tasmania SuperSprint.

The Monster Energy driver escaped the major pile-up in Race 3 at Tasmania relatively unscathed despite appearing to make contact with Garth Tander and Rick Kelly.

Waters was then involved in an incident involving Craig Lowndes in Race 4, with both events still under investigation by race stewards and to be followed up at Phillip Island.

He has earned plaudits for his improved pace in 2017 and sits fifth in the championship and highest among his Prodrive teammates.

“I think I'm pretty aggressive, not unfair I don't think,” he told Supercars.com.

“But it's probably no different to how anyone else has raced me.

“Last year racing in the pack, everyone runs into you. It teaches you not to take their stuff, so to speak, and not stand down. It’s working well for me at the moment.

“I plan on continuing it. I want to be fair. I want to race people hard.

“It's no different to how any other guys do it.”

The Lowndes and Waters incident was discussed on Inside Supercars, with rival team owner Brad Jones noting the Mildura-born driver’s aggressive manoeuvres.

Waters was involved in three bouts of contact at the AGP that were investigated by stewards while Jamie Whincup also noted the young driver’s aggression when dicing with him in Race 4.

“Lowndesy doesn’t think he hit him and sometimes you get that feeling, it’s always hard to know,” Jones said on the show.

“Cam’s in a lot of incidents this year. He’s run him out into the puddle and run him pretty wide.

“Craig’s pretty established in the category, he could have a bit respect for the people you race against.”

Erebus driver David Reynolds told the program he had no problems with the Ford racer who replaced him at Prodrive last year.

“He’s been really good with me. I haven’t had any run ins with him as yet,” he said.

“He’s always been a bit aggressive. Even when he first came into the category he was pretty aggressive.

“I think that’s just how he races and how he drives. I wish I could steal some of it and turn some people around.”

While Fabian Coulthard was docked 35 points for his actions leading into the Race 3 crash, Waters explained the incident from his perspective.

“It was pretty intense,” he said.

“I got hit a fair bit through (turn) one and (turn) two with Fabs (Coulthard).

“They (Coulthard and Kelly) obviously got together through three and hit the fence.

“We just all braked and tried to avoid the accident.

“It all happened that quickly I don't really know what happened.”

Despite his racecraft drawing attention, Waters said his increasing experience in the main series is one of the reasons he has progressed towards the front end of the field.

The 22-year-old started Race 4 on Super Soft tyres alongside teammate Jason Bright, while the rest of the field ran wets.

While Bright ran off the track, Waters was able to turn the bold strategy call to his advantage.

“We rolled the dice a little bit with that and it was a joint decision with Brad (Wischusen, his engineer) and myself,” he continued.

“I thought we could get away with it but the big unknown was the weather.

“I worked hard so hard on the warm up lap to get as much temp into it. I was puffed after it.

“Once the tyre temps got into it, it was really good. I just had to stay in it for those two or three laps when the track was drying up a little bit more, then we were underway.”