Click here now.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cSo, I think I got up to speed at a decent rate. It would have been nice if we could have someone else like Cam [Waters] or Tom [Randle] to jump in and baseline, but from what we know, I think it\u2019s pretty promising.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have heaps of high expectations going into the round, just getting comfortable and doing a lot of learning today.\u201d<\/p>\n
With limited sprint rounds available for teams to run a wildcard entry, the option to race at Queensland Raceway was an easy choice for Gomersall.<\/p>\n
\u201cReuben was going to do Townsville, and it just fell in the right place that this is my home round, I\u2019ve one heaps of laps here, I raced Super2 here last year as well,\u201d Gomersall said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s one of those no-brainers, really, when we\u2019ve got the opportunity. I think it\u2019s going to be a really good track to make my debut.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2026-Wildcard-Testing-Tickford-MSR-Z81_3265.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Gomersall conducted a wildcard test at Queensland Raceway ahead of his Supercars debut later in the season. Image: Richard Gresham<\/p>\n
After completing the day\u2019s running, Gomersall was comfortable with the relative familiarity of the Gen3 car compared to what he\u2019s used to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt kind of just feels like a Super2 car with less aero and a better tyre,\u201d Gomersall added.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou definitely notice that lack of aero balance through some of the high-speed corners, but the tyre \u2013 the soft and super soft \u2013 drives way better [than the hard].<\/p>\n
\u201cWith everything being controlled it\u2019s a lot closer, the cars in Gen3 versus Gen2, so you can really see how important your driving style and technique is to get the most out of the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having taken on a mentor role in Tickford\u2019s Super2 program in recent years, 2015 Supercars champion Mark Winterbottom was on hand to oversee the day.<\/p>\n
Winterbottom was impressed not only with how quickly Gomersall got up to speed across the test day, but also how he\u2019s fit into the Tickford environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Ben\u2019s really good, I think he didn\u2019t realise how much talent he had when we inherited him, we\u2019re lucky to have him,\u201d Winterbottom said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got really good driver inputs in his technique, I think he\u2019ll surprise a few people in the Gen3 car, he\u2019ll get rewarded more in that than the Super2 car.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes they don\u2019t know how good they are until they hop in with a few teammates who push them, and straight away he was fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw him on the front row at Round 1. Then in Darwin a couple of little things let him down and he could have been on the front row again.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s consistently proven that he\u2019s one of the front-runners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winterbottom noted how Gomersall had grown in the short time with Tickford after Triple Eight ended its Super2 program last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Ben\u2019s got on his side is raw pace, a really good driving style and a very well natured mentality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know if he\u2019s upset or happy, he\u2019s Oscar Piastri-like where he\u2019s hard to read. But he\u2019s hungry, he wants it, and works hard in the background.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see him going into Supercars, he\u2019s got the ability to do it, you need to put the runs on the board to get that confidence and I think he\u2019s at that level now.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, it was a tough year, a few up and down moments and when you\u2019re in Triple Eight, you\u2019re always in the spotlight.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut now with four guys in the team, you can roll out and if someone\u2019s quicker, then he needs to work hard to beat them and he\u2019s doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Gomersall got up to speed with the Gen3 platform. Image: Richard Gresham Gomersall will field a wildcard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,188165,127881,806,805,803,804,7499,85,43956],"class_list":["post-769014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-gomersall","tag-mark-winterbottom","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot4","tag-sports","tag-tickford-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Winterbottom](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2026-Wildcard-Testing-Tickford-MSR-Z81_3397.jpg\")