Live Pit Lane: Costly crunch drops Tickford behind Penrite

Penrite Racing is now officially the lead Ford team in Supercars, after jumping Tickford Racing in the Live Pit Lane fight at the NTI Townsville 500.

While Triple Eight Race Engineering and Dick Johnson Racing shared the wins at Reid Park, Penrite Racing walked away ahead of Ford rivals Tickford in the teams' championship.

Matt Payne finished fourth for the round, and third on Saturday. Cam Waters was second on Friday and challenged for victory midway through Sunday's race, but it was Saturday that did the damage for Tickford.

A wild lap 1 pile-up ruled both Tickford drivers out of contention, with Thomas Randle picking up damage in a dramatic collision with PremiAir Racing's James Golding.

The net result saw Penrite Racing leave Townsville just 28 points ahead of Tickford, but it could be as many as 58 given a botched pit stop in Darwin led to a 30-point penalty to the Grove squad.

Tickford did outscore Penrite Racing on Friday (77 to 66 points) and Sunday (150 to 136), but Saturday read 131 to 60 to the Grove squad. All told, Penrite Racing outscored Tickford by 46 points.

A solid weekend for Team 18 pushed it ahead of Matt Stone Racing, which despite Nick Percat's best efforts in the races, fell to eighth. The biggest damage was done on Sunday, when debris killed Cameron Hill's race.

There's still plenty to play for, though; Brad Jones Racing is just 115 points ahead of Team 18, which is six points ahead of MSR.

Supercars returns to Queensland Raceway on August 8-10 to round out the Repco Sprint Cup at the Century Batteries Ipswich Super 440. Tickets are on sale now.

2025 Century Batteries Ipswich Super 440 provisional pit lane allocation