'I bloody hope so': Randle bullish after years of toil

It's the question that has followed Thomas Randle throughout his full-time Supercars career: when will he shake the monkey off the back and score his first race win?

It's a question that the Victorian doesn't want to hear any longer.

Off the back of a 2025 campaign where he and Tickford teammate Cam Waters progressed through to the Semi Final round of the Repco Supercars Finals Series, the pilot of the Castrol Mustang is looking to go bigger and better in 2026.

The season opens at Sydney Motorsport Park in just over a fortnight. 12 months ago, Tickford ran riot at the opener, with Cam Waters dominant in all three races and qualifying sessions, and Randle finished third in the opening race.

Randle also secured a pole position in Tasmania, and converted into a runner-up finish as Broc Feeney began a dominant Sprint Cup run of his own. Now, 29-year-old Randle wants his time on the top step.

"I bloody hope so, that'll be nice," Randle told Supercars.com when asked if this would be the year he achieved his first career win.

"It's the only full championship that I haven't won a race in yet, so let's try and make that reality in 2026. I'm just gonna do everything I can to make it a reality.

"We know how competitive Supercars is and everyone just keeps stepping it up, so we've got to step it up even more.

"It would mean a lot to get that first win, but I don't want to put any extra pressure on myself. It'll happen when it happens and we'll do everything we can to put myself in that position and go from there."

Amid a wild off-season up and down pit lane, there has been relative calm at Tickford, who enter 2026 with a largely unchanged presence at the track.

New ownership from private equity firm Altor Capital marks a new era at Tickford, with the team also in the process of hiring a Performance Engineer to bolster their engineering lineup.

For the fifth-straight season, Randle will pair up with Cam Waters in the Tickford stable, whilst he will also resume a strong relationship with engineer Chris Stuckey.

It was with Stuckey that Randle finished a career-best fifth in the 2024 standings, backed up by seventh last year. Randle believes that for the most part, the stability at Tickford will be a boost, especially early in the season.

"We're looking for a Performance Engineer, which is public, so I think that they're just working through that process now, and I think that would that that would really benefit the team," Randle said.

"There's pros and cons to both. Stability is a great thing, and in terms of turnover I think it might be one staff turnover into this year, so from that point of view it's great to have stability.

"Like I said, they're still pushing to find some more staff and the most obvious is looking for a Performance Engineer, which I think really helps, so we'll see how that goes.

"It'll be my third full year working with Stuckey, so hopefully we can have a have a big year. I know we got to the Semi Finals, but I personally felt like we under achieved.

"It was probably a challenging year for Tickford, so we've just got to really step it up in 2026."

The 2026 Repco Supercars Championship begins at the DUNLOP Sydney 500 from February 20-22. Tickets for the event are on sale now.