Tickford on the brink after double Sandown disaster

Tickford Racing's 2025 Repco Supercars Finals Series hopes are hanging by a thread after a torrid Saturday at the Penrite Oil Sandown 500.

Heading into Sunday, Tickford teammates Cam Waters and Thomas Randle are both in the drop zone, along with Penrite Racing rookie Kai Allen.

With Will Brown racing from 15th to second and into the top four, Allen's Penrite Racing teammate Matt Payne is now fourth, 47 points clear. Allen is 47 points below, while Waters and Randle are sixth and seventh, 57 points and 104 points below respectively.

Randle's day started with a terrible run to 22nd in qualifying, but Waters reached the Shootout. However, the race quickly fell away from the Monster Energy Mustang driver, who fell to 12th by race's end. Randle, meanwhile, came home 16th.

"I'm in two minds I guess, it was a rough day," a dejected Randle said post-race.

"We didn't qualify well, we moved up spots but obviously didn't have the pace of guys like Will Brown, I mean he started 15th and finished on the podium, so clearly a lot of speed in their car.

"Cam dropped out of the 10 as well, so we've got a bit of work to do as a team overnight. Maybe we need a bit of weather around tomorrow, which it seems like it's heading that way.

"All guns blazing tomorrow, we've got again nothing to lose. Top four is going to be tough, a lot of things have to go right, but we'll see what happens."

Waters, meanwhile, vowed to "come out swinging," adding: “We just didn’t have enough car speed in the race.

“Bit of a challenging day but we still got some points, and I think we’re better on the other tyre, so we’re trying to look at the positives. We’ll come out swinging tomorrow, take some cars out, do whatever we need to do.”

Allen, Waters and Randle are now facing near must-win scenarios on Sunday to progress to Adelaide. Rain is forecast, meaning they could yet find themselves in the fight after being off the pace in the dry.

"You've just got to reset the mindset. You look on paper today and we finished 16th, but we finished 40 seconds off the lead, so you'd say it's going to be pretty challenging to win the race," Randle continued.

"But if it rains and we can just nail everything, you never know with incidents on the track and all sorts of things tomorrow.

"Tomorrow is our game day if you like, Chazzie is obviously locked in so congrats to him and the team, but I guess everything else is up for grabs.

"Once again we've got nothing to lose, we're seventh, and we can only go forward, so we'll put our best foot forward tomorrow."

Allen added: “If you win the race, you’re in. Not saying I’m going to, but I think if we go out there with a fast car, hopefully a wet car, I think Matt and I can put it up the front and have a really good shot to see what happens.

“We’re fourth and fifth in the championship, it’s not over, anything can happen. Three of those guys at the front could have an absolute shocker tomorrow. A lot of mistakes happened at Bathurst when it was wet.”

Sunday's action commences with Boost Mobile Qualifying at 11:20am local time, followed by the Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout at 12:10pm. Race 31, at 3:20pm, will decide the Grand Final field.