'Wounded' Waters Ford set for pre-Taupō rebuild

Tickford Racing is facing extensive repairs to Cam Waters’ new Ford Mustang ahead of the next round in New Zealand, following his Albert Park crash with Matt Payne.

Waters rolled out new chassis TR-30 at a pre-event shakedown, but the car was damaged in just its third race after a collision with Ford rival Payne.

Payne and Waters came together while disputing the lead in Saturday’s race, with neither driver penalised over the clash. However, both Fords required overnight repairs in time for Sunday’s finale.

Waters finished seventh and Payne 14th in a thrilling race won by Matt Stone Racing’s Nick Percat, but the #6 Monster Energy Ford was "wounded" in the finale.

Tickford co-owner Rod Nash hailed Waters' efforts to score a fighting top 10 despite battling with a "wounded" car.

“The incident with the Grove car was a bone of contention. But it is what it is, and the car will now have to be completely stripped and rebuilt for New Zealand,” Nash said in official Ford communications.

"Cam got out there and did the best he could with a wounded car.”

Tickford mechanics which worked until 3:00am on Sunday morning, but now have three full weeks to complete repairs before cars are flown to New Zealand for the inaugural ITM Taupō Super400.

“We're a bit disappointed that [the new car] got wounded so badly yesterday,” Tickford Team Manager Matt Roberts told the Schick Cool Down Lap podcast.

"We'd normally have our car crews' worth of crew on it. But this time round, it was just the two car crew worth of performance personnel, so we just had the 12 crew on it.

“It was an extensive repair. The car's still wounded. We can't hide behind that. There's lots of bent bars. We couldn't possibly change all those bent bars last night. It just wouldn't have been possible to get it back out.

“I think we finished it with about 15 minutes to go this morning before the dummy grid, so there were a couple of nervous moments."

Payne and Waters are seventh and 16th in the championship respectively heading to the April 19-21 round in New Zealand, the ITM Taupō Super400.

Fans planning on attending the event are being encouraged to lock in ticketing options.