Painful second for hot Waters
FEW could complain about young gun Cameron Waters’ brave runner-up result in the second race of the Supercars season in Adelaide.
Waters gained “redemption” after backing up from a dead-last finish in the first race on Saturday following a coolsuit malfunction that scuppered his chances.
He was cruising in sixth but was forced to pit on lap 20 of the first 78-lap race after his cool suit failed.
While he was adamant he could continue on a day when car temperatures pushed 70C, Waters had to get out of his Mustang for the suit to be fixed under the category’s duty-ofcare regulations.
When he finally returned to the race he was 14 laps down.
Waters bounced back to finish second on Sunday behind defending series champion Scott McLaughlin but not after battling the side effects of his cool-suit malfunction.
His right foot was still painfully burnt from the opening race. It ensured he had to use his non-preferred left foot for the throttle in race two but Waters still claimed his first podium finish since 2017.
“The right foot’s not that great,” Waters said. “The heat wasn’t a problem but, because I kind of burnt my foot, every time I pressed the brake there was a fair bit of pain.
“Towards the end of the race that was probably holding me back more than my tyre degradation – I kind of started to feel a bit sick.”
While Ford team boss Tim Edwards had no complaints about Waters, he had plenty of gripes about the treatment of his other star driver Chaz Mostert’s who was painted as the bad guy in a pit-lane row.
Mostert was in a top-five spot during the second race but had his winning chances soured by a pit-lane penalty for his role in the chaos that ensued after the sole safety car.
After the safety car was called when Holden’s Jack Le Brocq came to a halt at turn 11 on lap 27, most teams hit pitlane where Mostert ploughed into Nissan’s Rick Kelly blocking the exit.
Mostert later apologised to Kelly but Edwards was adamant his star had done little wrong and in fact blamed Kelly for “the dumbest thing”.