Mustang runners turned up the heat in the top end as Ford claimed twin wins and the big prize, the Triple Crown, at Hidden Valley in the Northern Territory.
Cam Waters ended a 46-race dry spell when he sprinted to victory in unseasonably cool conditions on Friday afternoon, before Kai Allen took his second career victory on Saturday afternoon.
However, come Sunday, it was Waters who snatched the biggest prize of the weekend thanks to three podium places, as he reversed the tough season to date for Tickford Racing and claimed the Triple Crown trophy.
“How awesome is that. It’s a weight lifted off my shoulders. The hard work finally paid off,” said Waters.
“A massive thank you to my whole team for digging deep Obviously it’s been a tough year. To get a win and a couple of poles is awesome, we really needed that.”
Waters’ success has moved him up to third in the Repco Sprint Cup standings, behind fellow Mustang racers Broc Feeney and Matt Payne. Brodie Kostecki and Kai Allen make it a Ford Racing top five sweep in the drivers’ standings.
There is also a change at the top of the teams’ title standings, with Grove Racing moving into the top spot at the expense of Triple Eight Race Engineering.
Ford Racing teams took home nine of the possible ten trophies from the weekend, following a pair of top five finishing sweeps on Friday and Saturday for the Mustang runners, locking out second through 6th on Sunday, and with a Blue Oval racer starting on pole for each race.
The Darwin weekend produced two major surprises on Sunday morning, as Brodie Kostecki and Thomas Randle were both sidelined by health problems. Dick Johnson Racing co-driver Todd Hazelwood jumped into Kostecki’s Mustang and finished an impressive 12th place, while veteran Mark Winterbottom dropped his television commentary work and battled to 22nd at the flag in the #55 Tickford Racing Mustang.
The 2026 Supercars Championship season continues its winter swing with the NTI Townsville 500 from July 10-12.
FORD RACE RESULTS
RACE 1
- 1st – Cam Waters
- 2nd – Kai Allen
- 3rd – Matt Payne
- 4th – Brodie Kostecki
- 5th – Will Brown
RACE 2
- 1st – Kai Allen
- 2nd – Cam Waters
- 3rd – Brodie Kostecki
- 4th – Matt Payne
- 5th – Will Brown
RACE 3
- 2nd – Matt Payne
- 3rd – Cam Waters
- 4th – Will Brown
- 5th – Broc Feeney
- 6th – Kai Allen
FORD DRIVER CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
- 1st – Broc Feeney, 1390 points
- 2nd – Matt Payne, 1375
- 3rd – Cam Waters, 1206
- 4th – Brodie Kostecki, 1187
- 5th – Kai Allen, 1171
- 7th – Will Brown, 1057
- 9th – James Golding, 899
- 14th – Thomas Randle, 653
- 20th – Aaron Cameron, 467
- 21st – Rylan Gray, 458
- 23rd – Jackson Walls, 369
- 25th – Todd Hazelwood, 48
- 26th – Mark Winterbottom, 21
FORD TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
- 1st – Grove Racing, 2486
- 2nd – Triple Eight Race Engineering, 2447 points
- 4th – Tickford Racing, 1880
- 6th – Dick Johnson Racing, 1718
- 8th – Blanchard Racing Team, 1366
- 13th – Objective Racing, 369
TEAM OWNER/TEAM PRINCIPAL QUOTES
ROD NASH, Tickford Racing
- “It’s cool to win the Triple Crown. It was pretty awesome on Cam Waters’ side of the garage to get him a win, but then unfortunate for Thomas Randle to have his cool suit fail on Saturday. He was in no state to be racing on Sunday.
- “The whole team has been working hard to get the pace into the cars and we seem to have turned the corner. I’m hoping it’s a real positive going forward, so we can get fast cars out of the truck and get straight into it.
- “But it’s so competitive out there. Looking ahead to Townsville, we’ve usually gone well there.”
MARK FENNING, Dick Johnson Racing
- “It’s a weekend of mixed emotions. Brodie Kostecki showed tremendous character, taking a pole position and podium while battling illness.
- “Unfortunately, on medical grounds, Brodie was unable to race on Sunday. Todd Hazelwood did an excellent job taking over Car 17, stepping into the car with no practice and finishing 12th.
- “Rylan Gray progressed well over the weekend and now we hope Brodie recovers quickly as we look ahead to racing in Townsville.”
- b“It was the toughest weekend of the year, but we set ourselves a six-month goal to hit our targets. It’s about maximising the package and trying to be as close as we can to the two Red Bull cars.
- “We cannot forget we have one of five rookies in the field and there is a learning phase to that as well. Now we’re six months into the program we can start to re-assess our targets and move forward.”
MARK DUTTON, Triple Eight Race Engineering
- “We’re still learning, learning, learning. It was a tough weekend at a track that has been a pretty happy hunting ground, so not to get a single podium is disappointing.
- But no-one in the team drops their bottom lip and it’s pretty cool to be part of that. It’s really special. Everyone is working to drive us forward.
- “There is a lot to digest from the weekend as we tried some different things on the cars. Not wild things, still measured, but we have a lot of data to digest and understand.
- “With the lack of test days you do have to be mindful about scoring points while learning and developing. You‘ve got to make a decision about how much to have a swing, or go for consistency.
- “Definitely some new learnings from this weekend. Lots of work to be done but good positive stuff.”
TIM BLANCHARD, Blanchard Racing Team
- “Not a great weekend for us. It's a bit frustrating to not be in game after some good runs recently.
- “But that’s inevitable and part of the process at the moment. We were competitive on the super-soft tyre but really struggled in the two races on the soft tyre, and Aaron Cameron also had a shock failure.
- “I think we can learn a bit from this weekend as we head to Townsville, as Triple Eight were also not strong enough. As a group we’ll be able to find some stuff as a collective to take us forward.”
STEPHEN GROVE, Grove Racing
- “The big thing for us is about winning and growing. We’ve had a very solid weekend.
- “One win probably got away from us on Sunday with Matt Payne but Kai Allen was the biggest mover in that race.
- “We’ve still got to keep working hard and pushing on. For me, I want to be super clear that we’re not getting ahead of ourselves. Leading the Teams’ Championship is great, but it makes both ourselves and Triple Eight work harder and that’s a positive for both Mustang teams.
- “We’ve excited about heading to Townsville, which is a track with high tyre degradation which usually suits us. We’ll get the cars back to Melbourne, get them stripped and prepared, then hit the road again.
- “Another positive from the weekend is that all four of our Grove Racing Mustangs have now won a race, after Kai’s win on Saturday. That’s pretty exciting and really good for the whole team. A great effort.”
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