Why Ipswich will test Tickford progress

Ipswich will be the biggest test of Tickford Racing's sharp progress, says Team Manager Matt Roberts.

After a slow start to the season, Cam Waters and Thomas Randle have surged back to form in recent rounds.

Through the opening five rounds, both drivers were let down in qualifying. Waters had a qualifying average of 10.7, with Randle behind on 11.7.

Since the start of Darwin, Waters has delivered a brilliant average of 2.9 — a huge gain of 7.8 positions — with Randle improving to 7.9. The improvement has put Waters in the box seat to clinch his Finals berth, while Randle has slashed his deficit to the top 10.

The forthcoming round at Queensland Raceway could offer the clearest sign of the team's progress yet, given how poor Tickford was 12 months ago. For the 2025 finale, Waters qualified 19th, and Randle 23rd.

"I was literally saying to the boys this morning, QR will be the test for us because we weren't strong enough last year at QR," Roberts told Supercars.com.

"We qualified 19th and 21st on the Sunday, and while we did get lucky with the Safety Car last year, that won't happen again this year.

"I'm a lot more confident this year. Our car speed should hopefully be top five. I'm pretty confident of that. The boys can race from there and consolidate on the points really.

“We can certainly consolidate third with Cam, so that’s what we'll set out to do. And hopefully with Tommy, we can creep even closer to the edge of the 10.”

The supreme form of Waters has changed the picture of the 2026 championship fight, which was dominated by Matt Payne, Broc Feeney and Brodie Kostecki in the opening rounds.

Waters is 598 points clear of the Finals cut-line, and needs to be 601 clear by the end of the Ipswich weekend to clinch his spot. Randle has slashed his deficit from 230 to 119 points since Darwin.

Getting it right in qualifying, according to Roberts, will go a long way to making an impact in the Finals, something the team failed to do last season.

“We had a real long, hard think after the two New Zealand rounds and Tassie where we were pretty down on ourselves,” Roberts said.

“Our race or quali pace wasn't there. The whole team focused on a couple of different areas, and qualifying was one of them. We highlighted to ourselves that qualifying is 85 to 90% of being a massive contributor to your race result.

“Equally too, we were trialing a lot of things, obviously looking ahead to enduros and looking even further ahead to Finals.

"Last year, we didn't go as well as we had hoped in Finals. This year we've made a strong pledge to make sure that we're well equipped for not only the two enduros, but obviously the Finals.

"So the sole focus was lift the game in qualifying. We know the race pace will come, we can work on that. Our race pace has been pretty good, it yielded some podiums at Darwin and Townsville, and Perth we were pretty unlucky."

Track action in Ipswich will commence on Friday August 21.

Supercars qualifying averages: Rounds 1-5 vs Rounds 6-8