Randle was running fourth when he was told to let teammate Cam Waters through five laps from the finish.
The swap was orchestrated on the basis Waters would let Randle back through if he could not chase down Brodie Kostecki for third.
Waters failed in his mission but was never instructed to hand the position back.
Randle declined to discuss the scenario on the TV broadcast post-race, saying only that “I might leave that one”.
Team manager Matt Roberts explained to Speedcafe that the proximity of the cars behind made a swap back too risky.
“Cam had four lap fresher tyres than Tom,” Roberts told Speedcafe.
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“He was going to have a crack at Brodie and if he couldn’t get it done he was going to give it back to Thomas.
“But [Will] Brown was too close, so everyone aborted. He’ll get it back some day, Cam will repay the favour.
“At the end of the day, fourth and fifth, it was only seven points. It wasn’t like it was for a race win or a P2.”
Randle remains 14th in the standings, 165 points adrift of the Top 10 Finals cut-off, while Waters is comfortably positioned in third.
Tickford’s team orders scenario came just one round after Triple Eight failed to execute a similar plan with its cars in Darwin.
“[Randle] was obviously disappointed but that’s the way racing goes,” Roberts added.
“You look at the last round between [Will] Brown and [Broc] Feeney, the Safety Car came out on the second last lap and they were unable to swap.
“In this instance we thought the racing was pretty tight from where Tom was. We didn’t want to overcomplicate it so we just left it.”
Randle had qualified third – two places ahead of Waters – and led the way for the team throughout much of the race.
However, the team’s cars did not have the pace they did on Friday, when Waters scored victory.
“I don’t think we went in the wrong direction, we just didn’t make a good enough gain today,” said Roberts.
“At the end of the day we’re still learning where we’re at with this current package.
“We showed speed yesterday, we showed speed in Darwin, so there’s no need to panic.
“We’re still ramping up for enduros and Finals. I couldn’t be happier with the way the team has rebounded in the last couple of weeks.”
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