Triple Eight steals lead after being 'smoked' by Waters

Triple Eight Race Engineering has rebounded from being "smoked" by Cam Waters in Sydney to steal the teams' championship lead from Tickford Racing at the first time of asking in Melbourne.

Waters put the field to the sword with three wins from pole position at the Thrifty Sydney 500 - Opening Round three weeks ago.

Will Brown and Broc Feeney ended the weekend second and fourth overall, and with Thomas Randle sixth, Tickford opened up an early lead in the teams' championship. It saw Brown call Triple Eight to action, demanding the team close the gap the Waters and Tickford.

Feeney and Brown bounced back on Thursday to start and finish first and second in Race 4, with Waters and Randle sixth and eighth in the chaotic race.

Crucially, while Waters took home the fastest lap bonus points, Triple Eight outscored Tickford by 48 points in one race alone to turn a 26-point deficit into a 22-point lead.

While Tickford or another team could take the lead across the weekend, Triple Eight is back in the box seat to head the field in pit lane at the next round in New Zealand.

For Feeney, Thursday's win was a crucial return to form after being left for dead by Waters in Sydney.

"For us it's just about executing in qualifying and then managing the races as best as we can," Feeney said.

"Obviously, things went a little bit better for me today than they did in Sydney, but we've just been focused on ourselves this weekend.

"My engineer Marty [Short] is doing a fantastic job and so is the whole team, they deserve this result. We got smoked in Sydney and we've rocked up here, and done really well."

Race 5 will commence at 2:50pm local time.