![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/204801.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nRandle was running fourth when he was told to let teammate Cam Waters through five laps from the finish.<\/p>\n
The swap was orchestrated on the basis Waters would let Randle back through if he could not chase down Brodie Kostecki for third.<\/p>\n
Waters failed in his mission but was never instructed to hand the position back.<\/p>\n
Randle declined to discuss the scenario on the TV broadcast post-race, saying only that \u201cI might leave that one\u201d.<\/p>\n
Team manager Matt Roberts explained to Speedcafe that the proximity of the cars behind made a swap back too risky.<\/p>\n
\u201cCam had four lap fresher tyres than Tom,\u201d Roberts told Speedcafe.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was going to have a crack at Brodie and if he couldn\u2019t get it done he was going to give it back to Thomas.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut [Will] Brown was too close, so everyone aborted. He\u2019ll get it back some day, Cam will repay the favour.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, fourth and fifth, it was only seven points. It wasn\u2019t like it was for a race win or a P2.\u201d<\/p>\n
Randle remains 14th in the standings, 165 points adrift of the Top 10 Finals cut-off, while Waters is comfortably positioned in third.<\/p>\n
Tickford\u2019s team orders scenario came just one round after Triple Eight failed to execute a similar plan with its cars in Darwin.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Randle] was obviously disappointed but that\u2019s the way racing goes,\u201d Roberts added.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the last round between [Will] Brown and [Broc] Feeney, the Safety Car came out on the second last lap and they were unable to swap.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this instance we thought the racing was pretty tight from where Tom was. We didn\u2019t want to overcomplicate it so we just left it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Randle had qualified third \u2013 two places ahead of Waters \u2013 and led the way for the team throughout much of the race.<\/p>\n
However, the team\u2019s cars did not have the pace they did on Friday, when Waters scored victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we went in the wrong direction, we just didn\u2019t make a good enough gain today,\u201d said Roberts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day we\u2019re still learning where we\u2019re at with this current package.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe showed speed yesterday, we showed speed in Darwin, so there\u2019s no need to panic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still ramping up for enduros and Finals. I couldn\u2019t be happier with the way the team has rebounded in the last couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Randle. Image: InSyde Media Randle was running fourth when he was told to let teammate Cam Waters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[43205,111,139,69,1732,213,43207,10504],"class_list":["post-520910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cam-waters","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-slot4","tag-sports","tag-thomas-randle","tag-tickford-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520910","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=520910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Tickford](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Thomas-Randle-Tickford.jpg\")