Tickford Loses A Car in 2021
Tickford Racing is headed for a three-car future in Supercars.
A last-minute scramble for an extra Racing Entitlements Contract has failed and Lee Holdsworth is near-certain to lose his drive as one of the Melbourne team’s Ford Mustangs is parked for the foreseeable future.
Tickford lost one of its four RECs when Phil Munday sold his license to Brad Jones Racing and has been unable to source a replacement.
The only slim hope, and it’s very slim, is that Jono Webb could make his second REC available if his second year as Team Sydney cannot be fully funded despite signing Penske refugee Fabian Coulthard as his lead driver for 2021.
Tim Edwards is reluctant to go into any detail, but confirmed to Race News that he was working to a three-car plan for Tickford next year.
“We know we’re not going to be leased or sold a REC to use next year. The teams have made that abundantly clear,” Edwards said.
“We just have to adjust our plan accordingly.”
Tickford had been hopeful of reviving the REC it handed back to Supercars for 2019, but an appeal by Rod Nash – a former driver and one of the three partners in Tickford Racing – was rebuffed by the Supercars board.
He even offered to take no income from the REC, so there would be no financial impact on existing REC holders, but even that plan was not enough.
Edwards is now heading into the Christmas break with the fall-out from the failure, including what looms as a tough talk with Holdsworth, after previously pushing ahead with the planned championship push through Cam Waters in 2021.
Waters has already had a shake-down run in the all-new Monster Mustang that he is expected to use in a three-way battle for title supremacy with a revitalised Jamie Whincup and young gun Anton de Pasquale at his new home with Shell V-Power Racing.
Tickford is building another new car, after Munday sold one of the existing Mustangs to CoolDrive Racing for Tim Slade, although there is no news on who will drive it.
The team is also continuing in the Super2 championship with Zac Best, and there is a possibility of a Wildcard entry at some main-game races.
Tom Randle, who has close Tickford team ties through his mentor Rusty French, is likely to be involved in some of the team’s plans and would be an easy pick for a Wildcard start.
“We’ve still got plenty on. And we’re still looking at what other options are open to us,” Edwards said.
“We still have our Super2 program, and Gen2 is coming up fast. You can pretty quickly draw some positives. And that de-stresses the business.”
The Tickford news comes with only two open slots on the 2021 grid – the second cars at Kelly Racing and Team Sydney – although it’s been an open secret for weeks that David Reynolds would move to a Kelly Mustang and he has now been released by Erebus Motorsport as Brodie Kostecki slides in alongside Will Brown.
“Will and I will definitely push each other hard as we’re both very hungry and eager to get results,” Kostecki said.
“We are already part of the family and that’s really important; we all have a good time, but we are all still hungry to get results.”
For Coulthard, Webb and Team Sydney provided a lifeline as he had only been offered a co-driver role at the born-again Dick Johnson Racing. His car is backed by Local Legends, a Tony Quinn company, as Geoffrey Slater also joins as technical team manager.
“Jonathon, Geoffrey and I have a clear direction for the growth of the team and we are committed for the long haul,” said Coulthard.
