Tickford team manager Matt Roberts has revealed to Speedcafe the extent of the company’s F1 activities during Australian Grand Prix week.
As reported on Sunday, Tickford Engineering was part of a support network for the new Cadillac F1 effort arranged by contract engineer Brian Cottee, who had been taken on by the team as a local “fixer”.
Tickford, though, was also engaged by Racing Bulls and Williams, which it had undertaken work for last year too.
The Campbellfield-based Tickford is trying to build its engineering offshoot business to utilise its extensive facilities, which include a composites department.
“I can’t tell you what we did for them, but RB reached out to us as soon as they landed, and the guys back at the shop worked into the night to get some parts machined for them,” Roberts said.
“Williams composites, Cadillac composites as well, the word gets around over in the paddock that we’ve got that facility back at the shop.
“We’ve got a Class A composites department at Tickford and it’s something that we’re trying to push, it’s good exposure for Tickford Engineering in general.
“We were pretty excited to do the work. We delivered some parts as late as [Saturday] night. The other parts came through on Friday night.”
Tickford’s Supercars team enjoyed a solid weekend at Albert Park highlighted by podium finishes for Cam Waters and Thomas Randle on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Waters finished second in the overall Larry Perkins Trophy points while Randle was 12th after being crashed out of the Saturday race.
“We still need to improve our qualifying pace,” surmised Roberts of his team’s performance.
“We were up and down, we weren’t consistent enough from our point of view, but race pace, we’re fairly happy with that.
“It was a bit unfortunate for Tom [on Saturday], but that’s what you get when you’re back in the pack.
“All in all, to come away still leading the teams’ points, it’s great momentum to build on and we’ll go away now and do our homework for Taupo.”
Waters and Randle are second and 11th in the championship standings respectively after the opening two rounds, with nine remaining before the Finals Series cut-off.
