Cameron Waters has urged patience around Tickford Racing as the squad prepares for next weekend's Tasmania Super440 at Symmons Plains, with the Monster Energy Mustang driver still searching for a one-lap recipe to match his clearly competitive race pace.
Waters sits fourth in the drivers' standings after 13 rounds, but the headline number masks an unusual 2026 trend: the 2024 Bathurst pole winner has not qualified inside the top five in a single event so far this year. He averages a 10.6 grid slot heading into Tasmania, yet his Sunday races have routinely featured charges through the field — most notably climbing from a pit-lane start to fifth in the Christchurch finale.
"There's definitely things where we're ticking off the list and we're going to work it out eventually," Waters told Speedcafe. "But in quali, our car is just not producing the grip as it should, where we get into race trim and it's quite good."
The 31-year-old described the campaign so far as a "rollercoaster" and identified qualifying speed as the team's clear priority for the rest of the regular season.
"We will work it out, we're a good team," he said. "It's just going to take a little bit of time."
That optimism has been tested by the team championship picture. Tickford led the constructors' standings briefly after Albert Park before sliding to fourth following a lean New Zealand round at Christchurch. Teammate Thomas Randle is currently 12th in the drivers' table, with the team's recovery hinging on Waters extracting more from Saturday afternoons.
"It was awesome to be leading the teams' championship for a few rounds. Obviously we went to New Zealand, we weren't that strong, and we obviously dropped a few positions," he said. "The [drivers'] championship, with the finals, it's wide open. You just have to be strong at the end of the year. I'd rather be not strong now and still be in the mix and be strong at the end of the year."
Symmons Plains, where the layout's tight first-corner hairpin punishes any straight-line shortfall, is widely regarded as a track that exposes any qualifying weakness. Waters has been on the podium in Tasmania before — including a victory in 2021 — but the new-generation Mustang has yet to show the same single-lap edge it carried into the season.
Tickford has been quietly reinforcing its technical group through the year, including the addition of former Toyota WEC engineer Rafal Pokora-Lewandowski, who oversaw two Le Mans victories with the GR010 Hybrid programme before crossing into Supercars. The expectation is that the data engineering uplift will start to show in qualifying trim across the back half of the season.
For now, Waters is content to chase strong race pace and hope a clean Sunday in Tasmania pulls Tickford back into the team title fight before the calendar turns to Townsville and Sydney Motorsport Park.
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