Le Mans winning engineer's instant Tickford impact

Polish-born engineer Rafal Lewandowski has made an instant impact at Tickford Racing, which returned to victory lane in Darwin.

Lewandowski, who enjoyed World Endurance Championship success with Toyota, joined the Ford team in April. He notably oversaw consecutive Le Mans wins with Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima.

Waters soared to his first victory of 2026 in the Darwin opener, before claiming poles and podiums in the next two races to win the coveted Triple Crown.

Key to Waters’ success was a major leap forward in qualifying performance, given the Monster Energy Ford was already one of the fastest cars in race trim.

Speaking after the Darwin finale, Tickford CEO Simon Brookhouse said the team’s newest recruit has installed a new lens on data and analysis.

“We set out at the start of the year to build to the Finals,” Brookhouse said in the press conference.

“We looked at a lot of what Walkinshaw did with Chaz [Mostert] last year and peaked at the right time and we have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes.

“We have been a little bit off in a couple of the rounds, but we just continued to work really hard back at the workshop. The feedback from the drivers is obviously really important.

“We’ve brought in Raf, a technical engineer as a new role, we think that has added some value around our analysis and our data. But all in all it has just been really hard work."

Tickford co-driver Mark Winterbottom was also brought in to watch over the team in Tasmania, and recognised where the team was falling short.

Winterbottom, however, also name-checked Lewandowski, while claiming the Ford squad has got its trademark swagger back.

“Just little things that they probably weren’t doing that they normally do,” said Winterbottom, when asked on Supercars’ The Run Home podcast where he thought Tickford was lacking.

“They’ve also had a guy, Raf who’s joined from Europe, who’s big in the simulation world, and doing a lot of work behind the scenes.

“To execute and win races, you need to be perfect. On the weekend, you saw them walking around, they had their confidence back, they had a fast car, they had the structure back that they are renowned for.

“Even the confidence to sit in pit lane in qualifying and save sets of tyres, that’s the Tickford I remember and the Tickford I know, not the scrambling one I saw at Tasmania.”

Waters jumped to third in the championship in Darwin, with the season resuming in Townsville on July 10-12.