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Its been a less than fruitful start to the 2018 Supercars season for Tickford Racing, with the team heading into this weekend’s Perth SuperSprint yet to score a podium.
The Victorian-based Ford squad were left in the wake of DJR Team Penske in 2017, who inherited the mantle of the top Blue Oval outfit and won a Ford outfit’s first team championship since Triple Eight in 2008.
2018 has begun in the shadow of the Shell V-Power Racing team, with increased opposition from the Holden teams equipped the new ZB Commodore chassis, who’ve won seven of ten races so far.
Much of Tickford’s blues have been surmounted to the change in the construction of the Dunlop control tyre, which shares more characteristics with the 2016 compound, upon which the four-car Ford stable also struggled on.
DJR Team Penske’s success on the new rubber has been attributed towards the vast knowledge brought to them by gun-engineer Ludo Lacroix, who in 2016 was still the chief engineer to Craig Lowndes at Triple Eight.
Though having only collected a highest placing of fourth so far in the season, Tickford’s team boss Tim Edwards says that “We’re confident we’ve made progress over the past couple weeks on our race cars, and historically we’ve been strong at Barbagallo, so we’ll look to have a positive showing again this weekend.”
He told Speedcafe.com that “it doesn’t matter where we are in the championship, there’s no point panicking.”
However, championship aspirations will be dented if results are not produced within the next third of the season. Tickford’s highest placed driver is once again Chaz Mostert, who in seventh on the table sits 252-points adrift of leader Scott McLaughlin.
Not only Mostert, but the remainder of the Ford quartet must step up. Much promise was shown from young Cameron Waters in the Endurance Cup last year, winning his first race with Richie Stanaway who as rookie in the No.56 car has had a turbulent start to the season.
Inconsistency once again has crept into Waters’ game, having only had three top-ten finishes in 2018 out of the ten races so far. While Stanaway, who sits at the bottom of the standings, has had a fiery induction ridden with incident – including one recently at Phillip Island with Nissan’s Simona De Silvestro.
In the final year of his contract, 2015-series champion Mark Winterbottom will be looking break his winless drought, which dates to Pukekohe in the back half of the 2016 season. Frosty has failed to make an appearance on the podium too, since mid-season last year in Townsville.
With such a well-credentialled line up of drivers and strong engineering group, it is perplexing to see the Tickford stable in the slump that they are. Particularly when fellow Ford team in DJR Team Penske is leading the championship.
Despite only being a third of the way into the current season, there will be a keen eye on starting 2019 on the front-foot, with the arrival of the Ford Mustang. Though Tickford mustn’t rest upon their hopes for the Mustang, with plenty of wins on the table yet in 2018.
Boasting confidence ahead of Perth, there will be no remedy like results and if they could notch up that first win of the season, let alone have a trip to the podium – it would be a big win for the success enriched outfit.
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