GARTH Tander believes Tickford Racing star Cam Waters must change his attitude if he is to contend for the Repco Supercars Championship crown this season.
Speaking in his role as an analyst for Fox Sports, the 2007 champion’s frank assessment came after a shocking Thrifty Bathurst 500 for the Monster Energy Mustang.
Touted by many as the pre-season favourite for the title following the departures of Brodie Kostecki and Shane van Gisbergen, Waters leaves Bathurst just 20th in the standings.
He qualified 20th on Saturday before a series of issues in the race – most notably a broken spindle – left him 22nd in the result. Sunday yielded a lacklustre 16th in the race from 18th on the grid.
While teammate Thomas Randle also struggled on Saturday, the Castrol Mustang was among the front-runners on Sunday as he turned seventh on the grid into a fourth-place finish.
That begs the question, can Tickford rebound and contend for the championship?
“The reason I’m going ‘yes’ is that Tickford have the runs on the board, and they have turned it around in the past,” said Tander on Supercars Trackside.
“I remember Townsville a couple of years ago, they got lapped and we raced at Townsville the following week and they won the race. So, they have got the ability to turn it around.
“But for Cam Waters, I love Cam, I love the way he goes about driving the race car, but for me he’s been kicking his bottom lip out of the way for a little bit now.
“The attitude and the mindset needs to change a little bit. I think that’s why Thomas Randle got on top of him this weekend.
“Cam is probably letting some peripheral factors influence the way he’s going about race weekends.
“If he can get past that and just get back to driving the race car and maximising his own performance, then they’ll be back in the game.”
The contrasting fortunes of Waters and Randle followed Tickford’s restructure from four cars down to two over the off-season.
Summarising the weekend, Tickford co-owner Rod Nash said the team was unable to give Waters a car capable of contending.
“It was a challenging weekend for us. We had mixed results but there were signs of pace so we’ve got to charge on,” he said.
“Thomas Randle did really well in the second race to take fourth, and the three in front of him at the flag were all pretty strong.
“Cam Waters was fighting with a lack of rear-end grip over the whole weekend. We just couldn’t get the car right for him, so the objective was just to finish.”
