Tickford Racing CEO Tim Edwards is confident his team’s Perth SuperNight form is an accurate representation of where they actually are at.
The four-car Ford squad had come under pressure following a sub-par start to the season, dropping as low as sixth in the teams’ championship during the Albert Park weekend.
By the end of Round 4 at Wanneroo Raceway, Tickford had returned to a comfortable third, a position it has finished every season since 2017.
That came as it fought for victory in all three races, Cameron Waters having to settle for third in Race 10 and James Courtney second in Race 12.
Waters did take the chequered flag first in the race in between, but was demoted to fourth courtesy of a controversial five-second penalty.
Jake Kostecki too had a career-best showing, qualifying third for Race 11 and pretty well racing inside the top 10 all day on the Sunday.
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In all, it left Edwards a mostly happy camper.
“This wasn’t just a flash in the pan,” he told Speedcafe.com.
“We had podium car speed at the [Australian] Grand Prix but for different reasons, either us running into people or people running into us, we didn’t get some podiums, which we should have got there.
“I suppose almost the most encouraging takeout of the weekend is we have got a car that’s fast on two very different tracks.
“But you have got to convert and we didn’t do that at the Grand Prix and got closer to doing that [at Perth].
“It’s encouraging for the team. This industry is a confidence industry as well, so it allows us to go to Winton with a bit of belief that there’s no reason why we won’t be doing the same thing there.”
Speaking to Courtney’s form resurgence, Edwards smiled: “The old boy has still got it.
“He has been telling everybody he’s still got it, we knew he still had it, but we’ve also got to do our part as a team.”
And on Kostecki? “It wasn’t just he snagged the lap in qualifying because he raced up there.
“In both the [Sunday] races he had the car speed and he was racing and at one point he was even on the radio saying ‘can we get Cam to hurry up’ because basically Cam was holding him up.
“So I think it’s a real positive that he’s starting to find his feet.
“It’s always difficult, you go to a new car, new team, new engineer and all those things, it takes a bit for all those ingredients to mix together. He has certainly been coming on strong.”
Unlike several other Victorian-based teams, Tickford Racing opted not to use a full test day on Tuesday at Winton Motor Raceway. The team did however run Thomas Randle for a rookie day.
The full Tickford fleet instead will head back to Winton after Round 5 of the season, with a test planned for early June.
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