Triple Eight duo playing long game amid drama

Will Brown leads Triple Eight one-two in points
Brown and Broc Feeney have won five of six races
Key rivals collided fighting for lead in Melbourne

Red Bull Ampol Racing teammates Will Brown and Broc Feeney will continue to play the long game in 2024, after several key rivals collided in Melbourne.

Brown and Feeney have won five of the six races this season, and are first and second in the drivers’ standings.

Last weekend’s Melbourne round saw collisions at the front of the field in the final two races, with Matt Payne hit out of contention twice.

Payne and Ford rival Cam Waters collided while disputing the Saturday race lead, with the race-ending clash deemed a racing incident.

A day later, Payne was hit out of the lead by Chaz Mostert, who was penalised and later apologised to the Penrite Racing rising star.

The crashes benefited Triple Eight, with Feeney winning Race 5 before both drivers scored podiums on Sunday despite starting sixth and ninth.

“We sat down this morning and said, ‘Look, we don’t need to win this race — we need to go out and finish nice and clean,’” Feeney said.

“When we looked at who qualified up the front today, they’re all sort of going to get that first win of the season, so we knew it was going to be on.

“Everyone’s battling really hard at the front, whereas I think me and Will are still pushing super-hard – and we’ve obviously got real fast race cars, which should help.

“But, I suppose we’re probably looking long-term, just to keep ticking the points over and, fortunately for us, we’ve been up here [on the podium] a few times.”

Where Payne could have beaten both Triple Eight drivers to the Larry Perkins Trophy, he ended up finishing the weekend with a DNF and 14th, and slipped to seventh in the points.

Brown had no issues with the hard racing, but acknowledged there will always be consequences when cars make contact.

“I think we’ve had a good start to the year and – not that we’re thinking about championship already – we don’t want to crash out,” Brown said.

“We know we’re going to be pretty strong this year, throughout the year, and I think a few other people are just going straight out for a race win, and I think we saw that [in Race 6].

“There’s some pretty fierce battles up the front, which I think is awesome – it’s really cool, how hard everyone’s racing – but, when you’re racing that hard, there’s going to be consequences when cars come together.

“So, that’s part of it. I think it’s awesome — I think it’s great for people at home and TV and all of that.

“But, I think we’re probably looking at it a little bit more as a long year.”

Brown leads Feeney by 17 points heading to the next round in New Zealand, with Mostert 97 points down in third.