Qualifying gamble leaves Feeney buried as Taupō nightmare continues
Supercars
4d
Strategy gamble in Race 10 Qualifying backfires for Broc Feeney
Feeney to start 20th this afternoon as Red Bull Ampol Racing's struggles continue
Today the second time Feeney will start 20th or worse in his Supercars career
Broc Feeney's nightmare weekend at the ITM Taupō Super 440 only went from bad to worse during Boost Mobile Qualifying for Race 10 of the Repco Supercars Championship.
Having appeared to have regained some pace on the Super Soft tyre during Race 9 yesterday afternoon, the switch back to the Soft tyre for Race 10 Qualifying saw both Red Bull Ampol Racing Camaros slip back in the pack.
The new characteristics of the 2025-spec Soft tyre, combined with the challenging layout and surface changes of the Taupō International Motorsport Park have presented a real headache for Triple Eight this weekend.
Those problems were not resolved despite a late-night effort from Triple Eight's engineers, with Feeney and teammate Will Brown struggling for pace once again.
Feeney's race engineer Martin Short and Team Manager Mark Dutton agreed to utilise a bold strategy this morning, which saw Feeney use his green tyre on his first run in Q1.
Although Feeney was second after the first run, he remained in the pits having used his competitive rubber, and as the track progressed, the #88 Camaro tumbled down the timesheets to 20th.
It is only the second time in Feeney's Supercars career that the 22-year-old will start the wrong side of the teens, the only other time coming at the Australian Grand Prix in 2023, where he qualified 21st for the third race.
Speaking on broadcast after Feeney's shock exit from Q1, Dutton admitted that the qualifying gamble had backfired and left Feeney with a mountain of work to do.
"We did it as a team, both Marty and myself made the call," said Dutton.
"We obviously got that wrong, we thought we were a bit stronger than we were unfortunately."
It wasn't much better for reigning champion Brown, who barely squeaked his way into Q2 by just 0.005s, before missing the Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout by a tenth of a second, qualifying 12th, despite big setup changes between Q1 and Q2.
Dutton added: "We don't have the pace, and we're working hard to find it, and you can't just throw everything out as well, so you can't do massive swings otherwise you go too far the other way, but at the same time we're giving it a fair swing now."
The Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout begins at 12:50pm NZST/10:50am AEST, before Race 10 of the 2025 Repco Supercars Championship begins at 3:05pm NZST/1:05pm AEST.
