Three-peat puts Waters on course for exclusive club

A perfect weekend in Sydney saw Cam Waters enter the record books, with the Tickford Racing driver heading to Melbourne off the back of three consecutive wins.

The Tickford Racing driver won all three races at the Thrifty Sydney 500 - Opening Round to leave the New South Wales capital with the maximum 315 points, a feat previously achieved only by Shane van Gisbergen.

Waters' Sydney sweep was the 70th across 20 different drivers since the V8 Supercar era began in 1997.

However, it was just the 12th instance in 29 seasons of a driver starting a new season with a sweep of all wins on offer, with Waters just the sixth driver to achieve the feat.

Of the 11 previous instances, drivers have gone on to win the championship on seven occasions, while the others finished no lower than fourth overall.

Mark Skaife (2001 and 2002) opened championship seasons with perfect weekends, as did Marcos Ambrose (2003), Jamie Whincup (2008 and 2009), Scott McLaughlin (2019) and van Gisbergen (2021).

Skaife also opened the 1994 Australian Touring Car Championship with a two-from-two run at Amaroo amid a record-equalling run of six straight wins.

Ambrose (2005), Whincup (2010) and van Gisbergen (2017 and 2018) also started new seasons with sweeps, but failed to go on to win the championship.

Waters' path to glory in 2025 is arguably the toughest of the lot, given he now has to navigate eight Repco Sprint Rounds and two Enduro Cup rounds before attempting to seal a Finals berth.

The top 10 drivers after Bathurst will fight for the championship over three elimination events at the Gold Coast, Sandown and Adelaide, with four drivers to battle it out at the final round.

Ambrose (2005), Whincup (2010) and van Gisbergen (2017 and 2018) all went into the final season of their respective seasons with a mathematical chance of winning the title, so Waters needs to be in contention in Adelaide to fall on the wrong side of history.

Waters will carry a 60-point lead over reigning champion Will Brown to the Melbourne SuperSprint, which will feature at the Formula 1 Louis Vuitton Australian Grand Prix 2025 on March 13-16.

Clean sweeps of opening round

In V8 Supercar era (1997-onwards)