{"id":320142,"date":"2026-03-09T04:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T04:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/320142\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T04:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T04:57:13","slug":"how-melbourne-reshaped-supercar-pit-lane-order-for-taupo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/320142\/","title":{"rendered":"How Melbourne reshaped Supercar pit lane order for Taupo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/JM1_1449_S9gejSvw_20260307113812.jpg\" alt=\"How Melbourne reshaped Supercars pit lane order for Taupo\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThomas Randle leads a pack of cars during the Repco Supercars Championship Melbourne SuperSprint. Image: Jack Martin<\/p>\n<p>Cam Waters had a weekend of incredible consistency at the Melbourne SuperSprint, netting two top 10 results and two visits to the podium.<\/p>\n<p>On the other side of the garage, a mixed weekend for Thomas Randle included a DNF in Race 6 and third place in Race 7 from second on the grid.<\/p>\n<p>Tough weekends for key title rivals Grove Racing and Triple Eight allowed the Ford squad to keep the lead in the standings, but only by the narrow margin of 17 points.<\/p>\n<p>The Grove Racing pair of Matt Payne and Kai Allen had rollercoaster weekends.<\/p>\n<p>Payne twice raced for the win with Dick Johnson Racing driver Brodie Kostecki in the opening two races, but incidents in the last two resulted in a DNF and 20th.<\/p>\n<p>On the other side of the garage, Kai Allen qualified well, but was involved in several incidents throughout each race, each time managing to claw back through the field and finish strongly.<\/p>\n<p>Triple Eight had an uncharacteristically up-and-down weekend, highlighted by podium appearances and a Saturday win for Broc Feeney.<\/p>\n<p>Will Brown was involved in a multitude of incidents, while Feeney was tapped into a spin in Sunday\u2019s race start, setting off the biggest crash of the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Three race wins for Brodie Kostecki allowed Dick Johnson Racing and Team 18 to swap positions, giving DJR the fourth garage in the Taupo pit lane.<\/p>\n<p>Kostecki\u2019s near-flawless weekend also netted him the driver\u2019s championship lead, the first driver since Scott McLaughlin to race with the #17 in orange. Waters\u2019 trouble-free weekend has him second in the standings.<\/p>\n<p>Walkinshaw TWG Racing vaulted up two positions into sixth place following strong showings from Chaz Mostert, and the first Toyota Supra podium from Ryan Wood.<\/p>\n<p>A mixed weekend for Matt Stone Racing has kept them in seventh position.<\/p>\n<p>Blanchard Racing Team lost two positions and moved down to eighth after a weekend rueing what could have been.<\/p>\n<p>Both Aaron Cameron and James Golding showed impressive qualifying speed, but between mistakes and other incidents, were left without the race results to show for it.<\/p>\n<p>Toyota squad Brad Jones Racing sits in ninth position ahead of PremiAir Racing.<\/p>\n<p>Erebus Motorsport sit in 11th position following a tough weekend of collateral damage for Cooper Murray and Jobe Stewart.<\/p>\n<p>The Supercars Championship will head across to New Zealand for a first-time double header next month.<\/p>\n<p>First stop is Taupo International Motorsport Park on April 10-12, followed by a debut visit to Ruapuna Motorsport Park near Christchurch the following weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Supercars teams\u2019 championship standings after Round 2 (Melbourne SuperSprint)<\/p>\n<p>Tickford Racing \u2013 734<br \/>\nGrove Racing \u2013 717<br \/>\nTriple Eight \u2013 687<br \/>\nDick Johnson Racing \u2013 663 (up one position)<br \/>\nTeam 18 \u2013 603 (down one)<br \/>\nWalkinshaw TWG Racing \u2013 562 (up two)<br \/>\nMatt Stone Racing \u2013 491<br \/>\nBlanchard Racing Team \u2013 467 (down two)<br \/>\nBrad Jones Racing (#8 &amp; #14) \u2013 464<br \/>\nPremiAir Racing \u2013 346<br \/>\nErebus Motorsport \u2013 247<br \/>\nBrad Jones Racing (#96) \u2013 187<br \/>\nObjective Racing \u2013 169<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/b\/285241\" rel=\"nofollow sponsored noopener\" data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none; vertical-align: middle;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/285241.gif\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Randle leads a pack of cars during the Repco Supercars Championship Melbourne SuperSprint. Image: Jack Martin Cam&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[43205,111,139,69,9335,213,217,10504],"class_list":["post-320142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cam-waters","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-slot2","tag-sports","tag-supercars","tag-tickford-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}