Thomas Randle not backing down over Anton De Pasquale skirmish
De Pasquale fumed at Randle after the latter emerged ahead on cold tyres
Team 18 driver lost race by 0.7s, missed out on Grand Final berth
Tickford Racing driver Thomas Randle has firmly backed his efforts stay in front of Chevrolet rival Anton De Pasquale during a tense moment in the Sandown finale.
Team 18 spearhead De Pasquale missed out on victory in Sunday’s race to Matt Payne by just 0.7s, which would have propelled the Chevrolet driver into the Grand Final.
Blue flags aren’t displayed during a pit stop sequence, meaning De Pasquale had to pass Randle on track. Randle, though, was in a battle with Broc Feeney and Chaz Mostert, and couldn’t afford to lose time.
De Pasquale fumed over team radio, having been escorted onto the Turn 5 kerb, before running wide at Turn 6 as Randle held firm. Payne and De Pasquale immediately stopped. Post-race, De Pasquale refused to foot the blame of his defeat to the Randle run-in, and the Ford driver maintained he had his own race to run.
“I just came out of the pits, I'm on fresher tyres, and I was racing Broc and Chaz at that point,” Randle told Supercars.com.
"I needed to have a good out-lap, and I knew once I got to Turn 6, the tyres would be up. It's just the first sector on the out-lap, the tyres were cold.
"I needed to stay in front of Anton, he was towards the end of his middle stint, his tyres were pretty much done by that point. And then to be honest, once I stayed in front of him, I gapped him.”
Randle himself had already lost time behind the duelling Ryan Wood and Kai Allen, who emerged in front of him on cold tyres. Randle lost time to Feeney and Mostert, and made his stop, having felt he was "getting massively compromised.”
The Castrol Ford driver saw the irony in the De Pasquale clash, though, given the tables turned at the Gold Coast last year when De Pasquale emerged in front of Randle.
"I didn’t think what I did was a problem. If Anton was in my shoes, he would've done exactly the same thing,” Randle said.
“There's no blue flags. I'm not really a lap down, I’m racing for P5. I'm in my own battle.
"If you wind the clock back just over 12 months ago, I was in a very similar position with Anton at the Gold Coast on the Sunday. We were racing for a spot to go to Sandown, he came out on fresher tyres when I was towards the end of my first stint and it compromised me. Sometimes people have short memories, I guess.
“I was just in my own race. It didn't matter whether that was Anton or anyone else, I wouldn't have done anything differently because I couldn't afford to lose more time. I needed to get on with it.”
Traffic pulled Payne back to De Pasquale in the final stint, but it wasn’t enough for the Camaro driver, who was eliminated. Randle finished sixth, behind Feeney and Mostert.
The result brought some joy to Tickford on a day Cam Waters was eliminated, with Randle also bouncing back after copping a puncture on Saturday while behind the collision between Wood and Jackson Walls at Turn 4.
"Before I pitted, I lost over two, three seconds stuck in that battle with Woody and Allen, who were racing for 15th,” Randle said.
“It's a short lap. It's easy to be stuck in that position. Same as the Gold Coast, Tassie, Perth — people pit and land right in front of you, and they're in their race. I feel like there's not much more to it.
“I mean, if they want to hang onto that as being a reason why they didn't make the Finals, that's a pretty big claim, you know? There's a lot of other reasons that they probably didn't get in the Finals.
"I watched the replay and saw I squeezed him on the kerb, and I didn't actually realise that at the time. For sure, I should have given him more room. I saw him Sunday night and I apologised for that.
“But in terms of staying in front of him, I won't apologise for that, because I needed to have a good out-lap and I couldn't afford to lose more time. Anton pitted at the end of that lap anyway. There's really not much more to it."
The 2026 season concludes in Adelaide on November 26-29.
