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Cameron Waters has become the linchpin of the Supercars silly season and is also the focus of this week’s Pirtek Poll.
The 28-year-old is into his 10th year as a Tickford Racing driver, having begun his tenure with the squad in the Dunlop Super2 Series in 2014 and graduated to a full-time Repco Supercars Championship drive in 2016 off the back of a title-winning second-tier campaign.
Waters has now established himself as one of the leading drivers on the grid, with a resume including a Sandown 500 victory, two pole positions and three podiums in the Bathurst 1000, and two runner-up finishes in the championship.
However, it is difficult to see how a true star driver could ever be satisfied if they ended their career as an ‘almost Bathurst 1000 winner’ and an ‘almost champion’.
With interest in the Mildura driver from several quarters, we ask this week what you think Waters should do with respect to his next contract.
As reported by Speedcafe, Waters has had offers/approaches from Walkinshaw Andretti United and even Triple Eight Race Engineering, among others, and is mulling over a future outside of Supercars.
At this point, the status quo remains a very real possibility.
Tickford Team Principal Tim Edwards heavily implied last month that the team has an option in its favour on the #6 Mustang driver’s services, which would be consistent with previous contracts with Waters himself and also with Chaz Mostert.
The latter would eventually join WAU in 2020 and has since won another Bathurst 1000, when Waters finished second in 2021.
However, Mostert – and engineer Adam De Borre – moved to Clayton as part of an all-changed driver line-up and, with then-rookie Bryce Fullwood on the other side of the garage, he has been able to make the team his own.
Notwithstanding that there is an older, championship-winning driver within the four-pronged Tickford roster (James Courtney), Waters also enjoys lead driver status where he is currently domiciled.
If the Mildura driver were to switch to WAU, then Nick Percat would have to find a new home – which would be a cautionary tale about leaving a team where one is the clear lead driver in order to chase the greener grass on the other side.
Waters has plenty of years left in him and, if history had transpired slightly differently in 2020 and/or 2022, his name may well have been on the Peter Brock Trophy already.
Does Tickford have enough potential to reasonably expect to snare either or both the Bathurst 1000 and championship title in the foreseeable future?
No one can say for sure, but those within the inner sanctum are best placed to answer the question.
Making it harder to do so, however, is the Supercars landscape broadly.
It is said that form is temporary and class is permanent. While the analogy might not neatly apply to a Supercars team, its performance at any given time is a function of car set-up and its underlying quality as an operation.
WAU is not enjoying the spoils it did in its days as the factory Holden Racing Team, though its trajectory has been positive since Mostert and De Borre arrived, and – needless to say – it aspires to once again be the all-conquering force it was at the turn of the century.
However, how much more improvement does it have in it, how long would that improvement take, and how would that future state compare to Tickford?
Again, we cannot say with complete confidence, and the introduction of Gen3 makes the question even harder to answer.
Throw in the ongoing struggles of the Ford teams broadly, and the picture is even more cloudy.
Certainly, very recent history reflects more favourably on Tickford. Waters set the two fastest laps of the Hidden Valley weekend, qualified on pole position for Race 13, and led that contest until his car caught fire, the cause of which the team has sought to distance itself from.
On current form – including the Symmons Plains event – Waters and the #6 Mustang are arguably the best Ford entry in the field.
But, what about a Chevrolet team?
Triple Eight’s apparent interest in Waters would be motivated by a desire to protect itself against the possibility that Shane van Gisbergen lands a drive in another category in 2025 and hence triggers an out clause in his newly signed contract.
While Erebus Motorsport has stolen a march on Triple Eight at the start of the Gen3 era, the Banyo squad remains a powerhouse of Supercars and history suggests it would not struggle to accommodate a line-up of Broc Feeney and Waters.
Still, that move is dependent on Waters staying at Tickford for another year, by which time the opportunity to go to WAU is lost, and his destiny is placed in van Gisbergen’s hands.
The wildcard in all of this is the Mildura native’s desire to race overseas, particularly in NASCAR.
WAU offers obvious overseas opportunities but, as van Gisbergen demonstrates, Triple Eight provides a decent shop window.
All of this speculation, of course, is predicated on the ability of Waters to extricate himself from his current Tickford contract (if the obvious inference from Edwards’ Symmons Plains comments is indeed correct).
The notion of a contract is often greeted with cynicism nowadays but contracts exist to protect the interest of the signatories, and there are always means to ‘break’ them if all parties have good reason to do so.
But, based on the alternatives on offer, does Waters have good reason to do so?
Sticking with Tickford is a risk, but WAU is a greater risk, and Triple Eight even more so again, for the reasons outlined above.
If you were the 28-year-old from Mildura – and you had the choice – what would you do? Cast your vote below in this week’s Pirtek Poll.
