Tickford Racing 2024 season review: Downsize pays dividends

As 2024 winds down, Supercars.com is looking over all 11 teams and their performances in this year's Repco Supercars Championship, continuing with Tickford Racing.

It was a moving year for Tickford Racing, which for the first time since its title-winning season in 2015, finished runner-up in the teams’ championship.

That alone was proof that downscaling from four to two cars was the right call for Tickford, which was one of two teams, along with Triple Eight, to get both drivers in the top 10 in the championship.

Cam Waters recovered from a terrible start to the year to win four races, take more poles than any other driver, and build a serious case for title glory in 2025. Being 388 points down after Round 3 killed Waters’ season, but from that point onwards, he was a constant at the front, and in the hunt for wins.

Thomas Randle has been one of the many success stories of Gen3, with the 2020 Super2 champion vaulting from 13th in 2023 to fifth this year. Top five championship finishes in any category, let alone one as competitive as Supercars, don’t happen by accident. Randle now has multiple poles and podiums, but the win remained elusive.

Since his torrid rookie campaign in 2022, Randle has made huge strides in the last two seasons. A supreme drive to third in the final race of the season was testament to the Victorian’s ability to stay in the fight, something he has made habit of. Notably, he didn’t back down in battles with Will Brown in Perth and Tasmania, and while his collision with Broc Feeney at Symmons Plains was disappointing, he was at least fighting for the podium.

Crucially, for the second year running, Tickford was the leading Ford team, beating the fancied likes of Walkinshaw Andretti United, Grove Racing and homologation squad Dick Johnson Racing. While it’s not a championship win, it’s a major source of pride, given Tickford fell behind DJR towards the end of the 2010s.

Special credit must also go to new CEO Simon Brookhouse, who in his first year in Supercars, managed to turn the team’s fortunes around after its tough start.

Tickford Racing: 2024 season results and head-to-heads

Drivers' finish: Cam Waters 4th, Thomas Randle 5th

Teams' finish: 2nd

Best result: 1st (4 wins)

Qualifying head to head: Cam Waters 18, Thomas Randle 6

Race head to head: Cam Waters 17, Thomas Randle 7

What’s next in 2025?

The new-for-2025 Finals presents a major opportunity for both Waters and Randle to win their maiden championships. Both drivers closed out 2024 in fine form, taking home trophies at Surfers Paradise and Adelaide, which are two of the three stops in the Finals.

Waters’ career has been a story of ‘nearly but not quite’, thanks to runner-up finishes in 2022 and 2024, and Bathurst podiums in 2020, 2021 and 2022. One of the stories of the enduros, and his title hopes on the whole, will be the arrival of Mark Winterbottom. It goes without saying, but the Waters/Winterbottom pairing will be incredibly hard to beat.

At minimum, both drivers must be amongst the wins. Waters is finding victory lane more often than not compared to previous years, but the team’s hopes will also hedge on how strong Randle is. On paper, Waters topped both head-to-heads quite comfortably, but Randle was never far behind, and has struck gold with engineer Chris Stuckey.

The team simply must start 2025 on the front foot. Remarkably, Tickford hasn’t won a race at the opening round of a new season since Will Davison in 2012. Disregarding the 2023 Newcastle win handed to him after Triple Eight’s double-disqualification, the earliest Waters has started a season crossing the line first in a race was Round 4, in 2021 and this year.