Team orders swap 'too risky' for Tickford

Tickford Racing is planning to repay Thomas Randle for an aborted team orders play that in Saturday's Townsville race.

Randle finished behind teammate Cam Waters in Race 21. Randle was ahead, only to let Waters through five laps from the finish. Waters was unable to catch Brodie Kostecki for third, but wasn’t instructed to hand the position back.

The position swap cost Randle seven points, but caused no change of championship position for either Tickford driver. However, it would have put Waters within three points of losing third to Kostecki.

When asked about the swap of positions, Randle deflected: "That's a good question. I might leave that one, but anyway."

When asked about the situation by Supercars.com, Tickford Team Manager Matt Roberts explained that the proximity of Will Brown behind made an orchestrated move too risky.

“We were hoping Cam could've been able to get onto the back of Brodie, but obviously by the time he got past Thomas, he'd cooked his tyres anyway,” Roberts said.

"Cam wasn't able to make much of an inroad on Brodie. I think the thought was to give the position back, but Will Brown was just too close. It was just too risky.

“We’ll get it back another day. It’s only a couple of points. From where we've been for the first part of the year, for the team to finish fourth and fifth today, not a bad result.”

Randle had one of his strongest days of the year so far on Saturday, qualifying a sensational third ahead of Waters, before racing ahead of him for the majority of the 68-lap race.

Randle felt aggrieved that he wasn't allowed back ahead before the end of the race, but still took the positives out of a strong day.

"We finished fifth, so it wasn't too bad, a podium would've obviously been awesome, said Randle post-race.

"I'm not sure what happened with Brodie, whether he was fuel saving there at the end, but then halfway through the last stint he got going.

"I think we could've finished fourth, but Cam was in there as well, but happy to finish in the top five after the way our year's been, I'm pretty happy with that.

"We went in with a target this weekend to get three top 10s or three top fives. We've got a sixth and a fifth, so hopefully tomorrow we can go a little bit better."

In any sense, it was a huge day for Randle's Finals aspirations, as he clawed back a whopping 65 points on the bubble, now sitting 165 points away in 14th.

Ryan Wood, Chaz Mostert, James Golding, Jack Le Brocq, Andre Heimgartner, Jayden Ojeda, and Randle are within 170 points of the bubble, the latter four all trying to bump their way in.

“We set a target for him to make the Finals," Roberts said.

“He's ticking the boxes, bringing home the top fives. That's what we want. Long way to go."