Words with Cam Waters: A weird weekend at Sandown

The Sandown 500 was a bit of a weird weekend, to be honest.

The car felt really good early in the weekend. It’s actually the best that the car has felt for a long time. But we just struggled with straightline speed, which makes it hard at Sandown.

I qualified 13th, which wasn’t too bad. There might have been a little bit more in it, but the field was so tight that it could of gone either way. All things considered, it was a good result.

My co-driver Jack Le Brocq did a great job in his qualifying race. And for my qualifying race I made a mega start, but it turned sour from there. I got up next to James Moffat, raced him through Turn 1, and we were side-by-side on the run to Turn 2. Then Chaz Mostert came back on track after running wide at Turn 1, and I think it spooked James a bit. He swerved to the left, and I ended up with a Volvo in the side of me. It tore the tyre off the wheel, and my day was done.

It was disappointing, but that’s racing.

Things didn’t get all that much better on the Sunday. We had to start down in 26th, although Jack made a good start and put in a good first stint. We were on for about 12th when I jumped in the car, but from that point onwards I started struggling more and more with straightline speed.

What we now know is that the engine was slowly letting go. Eventually it did let go, and it was game over. Initially I thought I’d just gone into Turn 4 too hot, but looking back there was so much oil through and over the car. So it seems that’s what I slipped up.

It was a shame to end the weekend like that. The car was good, we just didn’t quite have the motor to go with it. We’ll throw a new engine in for Bathurst and we’ll go from there.

Jack’s performances a positive

The one big positive we can take from the weekend is how well Jack drove. He’s still pretty fresh in terms of main game miles, although he’s doing the miles in the Dunlop Series – and that helps enormously.

He did exactly what we needed him to do at Sandown. He just went out, raced cleanly, and moved forward both times the was in the car in terms of races.

He struggled a little bit with the transition between the hard tyre on the Dunlop Series car and the soft tyre on mine, but that was a pretty common thing for guys doing double duties. The important thing is he kept the car clean – which is exactly what you want your co-driver to do.