Waters battled through pain to secure Adelaide podium

Cam Waters battled through a painfully burned right foot to secure second place in Race 2 of the Superloop Adelaide 500.

Waters suffered the injury to his foot in the extreme heat of Race 1 on Saturday, an event from which officials pulled him out of when his coolsuit failed.

He subsequently admitted that he was using his left foot on the throttle, and moving his right foot towards the window on the straights in an effort to cool it.

After racing to second place ahead of Shane van Gisbergen in Sunday’s race, the Monster Energy Mustang driver admitted it was the pain which was the limiting factor in the closing stages.

“(My) Right foot’s not that great to be honest,” he admitted.

“The heat wasn’t a problem today, which was a nice change, but because I kind of burned them (feet) yesterday, every time I pressed the brake there was a fair bit of pain.

“Towards the end of the race that was probably holding me back probably more than my tyre deg and all that stuff; kind of started to feel a bit sick.”

In the closing laps, Waters was forced to deal with the threat posed by a hard-charging van Gisbergen, who’d pitted for the final time a dozen laps later than the Tickford entry and enjoyed a pace advantage courtesy of fresher tyres.

“I was in a fair bit of pain so kept asking ‘How many laps to go?’, trying to do a few and then ask again; just had a few mental strategies to try and get through it,” he added.

“Shane was coming at me pretty hard so I knew where I had to be strong and lucky enough my car was good through those parts.”

His cause was helped by the race running to a time certain finish after a delay to the race start, though the Monster Energy driver believes he could have fended off van Gisbergen even had the race run its full length.

“I think I probably had the pace anyway to kind of hold him off,” he added.

“I was quick through (Turns) 1 and 2, quick through (Turn) 8 which led to the big pass opportunities; I was going to make it hard for him anyway.”

The result comes off the back of a frustrating Saturday which saw Waters hauled from the race when his coolsuit failed.

While heralding the result as redemption for the disappointment of Saturday’s race, he suggested the team made gains with his car that ensured his Race 2 performance was stronger than he could have managed in Race 1.

“It’s a little bit of redemption,” he said.

“Yesterday I think we had good pace, I don’t know if we had pace for a podium but we’ve definitely made improvements overnight and it does make up a little bit for yesterday.”