‘We don't do this job to come eighth’: Waters

Sydney Motorsport Park continues to be an Achilles heel for Tickford Racing, with the team reporting only "general improvements" across its four cars.

Jack Le Brocq and Cameron Waters were classified sixth and eighth respectively in the ARMOR ALL Sydney SuperNight opener.

It marked an equal season-best result for Le Brocq, who claimed his maiden victory at the Eastern Creek circuit last year.

Tickford's SMSP struggles began at last weekend’s Bunnings Trade Sydney SuperNight, with Waters recording only one top 10 result across the three races.

Waters, who dropped from third to fifth in the points standings last week, did claim the #6 Monster Energy Mustang was starting to show progress.

"Today was okay," Waters said after Saturday night's race, which was won by Shane van Gisbergen.

"Since the last race last weekend my car has been starting to feel like my car again, and we made some more progress today which is positive.

"I got a good start and that really set up our race, had a small hiccup in our stop but I’m not sure that hurt us too much.

"I think I used up my tyres a bit moving up towards the end, that probably kept us from making more ground in the closing laps.

"Eighth isn’t too bad, definitely better than where we were this time last week, but that being said we don’t do this job to come eighth.

"There’s plenty of room for improvement and we’ll keep working hard to get more out of it tomorrow."

Le Brocq displayed the best pace of the Tickford Mustangs; having recovered from a poor jump off the line to slip to ninth.

One of only four cars to start on Softs, the #5 Truck Assist Mustang driver made up time to front-running van Gisbergen before he changed to Hards at the end of lap 13.

"Today was solid for us, probably one of our better days of the season so far," Le Brocq said.

"We were thereabouts and well within the top 10 all day which was positive, and the boys made a good bit of progress across the day, so it went pretty well to plan.

"My race start was pretty average and that probably hurt our end result, but the car was solid, I got a real good stop from the boys, and our pace was pretty decent all night.

"I was really hoping to hold onto fifth at the end but being on the hard tyre made it tough to defend.

"Still sixth is a good way to start the weekend, we’ll see what we can do overnight to tune her up and hopefully back it up tomorrow."

Tickford wildcard Thomas Randle started an adjusted 20th for Race 23 after being hit with a three-place grid penalty for impeding fellow wildcard Kurt Kostecki in qualifying.

Randle finished 22nd in the race, complaining of a lack of pace after changing to Softs.

Cars will return to the track on Sunday for Race 24 qualifying at 2:30pm AEDT.

Race 24 will commence at 4:35pm, with the floodlit Race 25 to follow at 7:30pm.

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