Cam Waters explains fiery Supercars retirement in Darwin

Tickford Racing’s Cameron Waters believes there will be a “fair bit of damage” to his Ford Mustang following his dramatic exit from the opening Supercars race of the weekend at Hidden Valley.

Waters had topped qualifying to take his first pole position of the season and duly led off the line to control the early stages of the 35-lap sprint encounter.

But his race ended abruptly as a fire broke out in the footwell of his Mustang approaching turn one at the start of the fifth lap.

The fire soon spread to the entire front-end of the car, with flames licking out, forcing Waters to pull over at the side of the road.

It ended his race and left his Tickford team in a race to repair the car ahead of the remaining two races in Darwin.

“I’m alright, just pissed off to be honest but it is what it is,” Waters told the Supercars broadcast team.

“I got a really good start and was looking after the tyres and the car was feeling good and then going down the front-straight I had a fire in the footwell, which wasn’t good.

“And then going into turn one, it was up so I just had to get out as soon as I could. The bonnet had a weird flap going into the last corner, but I just thought that I had hit something, but yeah, it was on fire and then when I got to turn one, the engine shut off and I had a long pedal and there was just fire everywhere.”

Despite the prompt arrivals of the marshalls and Supercars safety crews, Waters reckons his team face a lengthy repair job.

“The marshalls were great to get out with the fire extinguishers and I kind of took over their job but there will be a fair bit of damage.”