What the Sydney Supercars opener told us about the season ahead

Cameron Waters might be a contented man after the opening spherical of the 2025 Supercars championship at Sydney Motorsport Park.

The Tickford Racing Mustang driver left Sydney with 315 factors from the three races. Just one different driver in Supercars historical past has scored 300 factors for the three wins and 15 additional for 3 quickest laps, and that was Shane van Gisbergen at The Bend three years in the past. However Waters added an asterisk to van Gisbergen’s marker; he took pole for all three races as effectively…

The second of Waters’s three wins might be talked about for years and what a spectacle it was. After watching the race stay, this author had already rewatched the ultimate 5 laps 3 times in lower than 24 hours; the race was a blockbuster and readers are inspired to discover a replay on-line and settle in.

As glad as Waters can be after such a dominant efficiency, Will Brown has simply as many causes to be smiling. Regardless of the defending champion was up towards over the weekend, he pushed again, turning eleventh on the grid into fifth in Race 1 and fifth into third in Race 2.

However it was on Sunday when he was at his greatest. After the primary qualifying session he was down in seventeenth on the grid for the ultimate race; that was the graphic that viewers noticed on the display screen and a place many had destined him to. However whereas the TV protection was leaping the gun, Brown aborted a second flying lap, pitted for a tyre change and blazed round at near-race tempo on his out-lap to scramble throughout the road with 9 seconds to spare to begin yet one more lap. It labored.

Brown scraped into the Prime 10 by 0.0018s. Within the Prime 10 qualifying decider he cashed in that chip, leaping to fourth on the grid, and made it as much as second within the race. Against this, the driving force who did begin seventeenth, Nick Percat, was caught within the midfield chaos and solely rose to fifteenth.

Even essentially the most ardent Brown followers should recognise that he wants to shine his qualifying performances, however he’s within the dialog for being the very best Supercars has seen by way of fightbacks, a mantle presently assigned to both Jamie Whincup or Mark Skaife.

There have been loads of speaking factors over the primary weekend of the brand new marketing campaign and certainly one of them was the new-for-2025 season finals system. That may, in mid-October, see the highest 10 drivers within the factors partitioned from the remainder and have their factors reset, in order that over the ultimate three rounds of the season, drivers might be eradicated from title competition till simply 4 go to the ultimate two races on the streets of Adelaide to combat for the trophy.

That has additionally raised the query: when is the time to speak about who’s going to make it into finals competition? Three races right into a 34-race season, it simply is perhaps now. At Tickford Racing, Waters is first within the factors and Thomas Randle sixth. Triple 8’s Brown and Broc Feeney are second and fourth respectively, cut up by Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert in third.

Matt Payne of Grove Racing sits fifth with Randle sixth, adopted by the relocated duo of Anton De Pasquale, who moved from Dick Johnson Racing to Team 18 within the low season, and Brodie Kostecki (Dick Johnson Racing). The 2023 champion took the seat vacated by De Pasquale and already appears at house in a Ford Mustang. PremiAir Racing’s James Golding sits ninth, adopted by Brad Jones Racing’s Andre Heimgartner.

There’s not an enormous hole to the very best of the remainder, led by Jack Le Brocq, who’s simply 4 factors again from Heimgartner. However it wouldn’t be a shock if, even when the order appears totally different, the highest 10 drivers stay the identical from now till 12 October on the finish of the Bathurst 1000.

Brown and Kostecki are title-winning drivers. As the primary Ford driver in 691 days to steer the championship, Waters could have extra wins forward of him. 5 of the opposite drivers within the prime 10 are race winners and the remaining two, Randle and Golding, have seemed like the 2 likeliest first-up winners for a while.

Even at this early stage of the season the problem for the remaining drivers and their groups might be to show that they’re able to attending to the entrance of the chasing peloton and shutting the hole to Supercars’ prime order. With 31 races to go, the precise order of prime 10 will ebb and circulate, however many have already proven their arms – and the Supercars finalists would possibly simply be set.