It was a weekend of firsts for Randle at the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst. The BRDC Rising Star and rookie enduro driver scored his maiden round win in the Dunlop Super2 Series by claiming victory in the 300-point 250km mini enduro race. Randle also took part in his first Bathurst 1000 for Tickford Racing driving with Lee Holdsworth and the pair scored a top ten result after a manic race filled with late safety cars.
Randle went for a wild ride on Friday in Super2, as the 23-year old found the barriers of the Esses during practice two. With only a few hours between practice and qualifying, the hard-working Skye Sands crew managed to repair the black and gold Falcon in time for Randle to contest qualifying, where he posted the sixth quickest lap. "I didn't even think I was going to be in the race," Randle said. "That was a pretty big shunt in Practice 2, I mean better to do it then, than in the race.
The guys at Tickford and even a couple of old Tickford guys jumped onboard straight away and the car went from two quarters hanging off it and all bent up, to qualifying sixth. When I got out of the car, I saw the damage and I knew it was a big hit into the wall, because the walls here don't move, and I thought either we're going to be starting at the back or we wouldn't be starting at all.”
Randle climbed from sixth to finish second on the road, however following a post-race penalty to car 16 on Saturday evening, Thomas Randle was declared the winner of Dunlop Super2 Series Race 10 at Mount Panorama in Saturday’s 250-kilometre race at Bathurst.
The result elevates Randle to second in the Super2 championship with two rounds to go.
“It doesn’t feel amazing because of the circumstances, but hey, we’ve been in exactly the same position as Bryce (Full wood). I won convincingly up at Townsville, just like you could say Bryce won convincingly here today and got stripped of that. Ironically, he was elevated to first in Townsville, so I guess the roles are reversed. I know I saw the yellow flags and I backed out of it, it was the last lap and we were pretty safe. I know exactly how he’s feeling now, but I’m just going to soak it in. It was a race of minimising mistakes, and we did pretty well with that today. Great way to top off the day, and to think that a little over 24 hours ago the car had a couple corners hanging off it, and now we’ve won the race, it’s pretty awesome.
Super2 is next in action at the Sandown 500 for their penultimate round on November 8-10.
The highest finishing Tickford Racing car in the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 was that of Thomas Randle and Lee Holdsworth in 10th position.
“I think it was a really good race, the car was quite strong. I was happy with my stints, and we got lucky with the driver laps. The Safety Car came out at the right point for me, I think I had done 55 laps when I pitted for the driver change, so that worked out well. Lee drove really well, and unfortunately, we just lost a fair bit of ground with Coulthard backing everyone up. Other than that, I think a top ten is a solid result from where we qualified, but I think there was a lot more potential, which hopefully we can show at Gold Coast in a fortnight’s time.”
Supercars returns to action in two weeks with the second leg of the 2019 Pirtek Enduro Cup at the Gold Coast 600. On-track action begins Friday, October 25, with 300-kilometre races on Saturday and Sunday on the streets of Surfers Paradise.
