FOR the first time in the short history of Supercars finals action, Tickford Racing will start with one of its cars officially out of the title hunt.

Last year, Triple Eight, Grove Racing, Walkinshaw Andretti United and Tickford all got both their drivers into the playoffs.

Triple Eight, Grove and Walkinshaw TWG have now repeated that feat, but the same cannot be said about Tickford.

Cam Waters secured his golden ticket back in August at the Ipswich Super440, but ninth place in last weekend’s Bathurst 1000 was not enough to lift Thomas Randle into finals. The Castrol Mustang driver is 12th in the points with three rounds remaining.

Tickford team manager Matty Roberts expressed the hurt attached to having half of its line-up already over and out, but vowed to have both sides of the garage come out swinging at Surfers Paradise.

“We were hoping to have a better result than we did for both cars,” he told V8 Sleuth of Bathurst.

A glum Cam Waters. Pic: Mark Walker

“It’s unfortunate for Tom coming home in ninth in the race and 12th (in the points).

“We won’t change our mindset, we’re still racing hard at Gold Coast. Tommy will be going for the win just as much as Cam will.

“There’s no doubt that we’ll continue to push forward and make sure we’ve got plenty of speed at Gold Coast. It wasn’t evident (at Bathurst). Friday qualifying really hurt us, the track conditions really caught us out. We didn’t maximise and unfortunately couldn’t provide a faster car to both Cam and Thomas.

“As a team, we need to go back and make sure we can come out at Gold Coast with two really strong cars.”

Tickford technical director Brad Wischusen. Pic: Mark Walker

Asked if they’ll look to forget all about Mount Panorama, where the fancied Waters/Mark Winterbottom entry qualified 14th and finished 15th, Roberts gave a firm no.

“We’re certainly not going to forget about it, because it burns pretty hard when you have a result like that, especially when your car pace wasn’t there pretty much all day,” he said.

The good news is Tickford has been consistently excellent at the Gold Coast 500 in the Gen3 era.

Waters’ race results in the past three editions of the event read first, third, first, fourth, fourth, fifth.

Randle was a front-row starter there last year and has Gen3 Gold Coast results of fourth, seventh, second, fifth, ninth and seventh.