Supercars 2023: Triple Eight young gun Broc Feeney claims historic Sandown 500 win alongside Jamie Whincup
Triple Eight young gun Broc Feeney claimed his first endurance crown and his boss Jamie Whincup added another one to an already full trophy cabinet at the Sandown 500.
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It was the story of the master and his brilliant apprentice as Triple Eight young gun Broc Feeney claimed his first endurance crown and his boss Jamie Whincup added another one to an already full trophy cabinet with a thrilling victory in the Sandown 500.
As endurance racing returned to Sandown for the first time since 2019, Feeney held off his Erebus Motorsport rivals to give his and co-driver Whincup’s Bathurst 1000 preparations a shot in the arm with a stunning win in the 500 km classic.
Surviving a 15-lap sprint to the finish after a late safety car, Feeney withheld the intense pressure of series leader Brodie Kostecki breathing down his neck to hold his ground and then edge away for a famous win.
Feeney, 20, became the youngest winner of the Sandown 500 in his first start in the race, while his Triple Eight team boss Whincup took his sixth win in the event.
Whincup joined Allan Moffat and Craig Lowndes as a six-time Sandown 500 champion with only Peter Brock (nine) ahead of them.
The victory gave Triple Eight its 250th Supercars win in a race that also featured a stunning fightback from Shane van Gisbergen and Richie Stanaway, who finished third after starting from 19th on the grid.
After starting on the front row, Erebus star Kostecki and David Russell finished second, while teammate and pole sitter Will Brown (Jack Perkins) finished fourth after a late error allowed van Gisbergen to steal third position.
In a race that featured a flying wheel, dramatic spins and lost rear wing to rivals early on, Whincup gave the Triple Eight pair the perfect start with a flawless opening stint.
But Feeney stamped his credentials as a future champion of the sport with a mature drive to the finish.
Feeney celebrated the win with a series of epic burnouts before being joined on the roof of his Camaro for a giant hug from his boss.
“It’s pretty bloody awesome, Sandown, so thanks everyone for coming out,” Feeney said.
“Man, this guy (Whincup) is so bloody good, watching him go at the start, he made it pretty comfortable for me, but that safety car really tightened things up and Brodie did a ripper job, congrats to him and his team.
“Man, the pressure was on, but we turned this thing into a bit of a rocket and I can’t thank the team enough and (Whincup), he’s been so important to me the last few years.
“That was pressure, that was hard work towards the end there, but I’m so stoked to come away with the win.”
Whincup praised Feeney’s fortitude late in the race.
“Don’t underestimate the job that this guy did, he’s 20 years old and there was a lot of pressure there at the end,” Whincup said.
“Clearly both cars were very good, so thank you to everyone at Red Bull Ampol Racing.
“It’s a hard race to win, easy race to lose and everyone did their job and played their role.
“It’s the 250th win for Triple Eight so we couldn’t be happier.”
Feeney and Whincup finished fifth together in last year’s Bathurst 1000, but will now start as one of the favourites for the showpiece event at Mount Panorama.
Feeney retained his place in third in the championship standings, but Kostecki extended his lead over van Gisbergen to 155 points.
“These guys got a better track position on us early on when we had to double stack, but I just felt like we were just trying to come back from there on,’ Kostecki said.
“The car had plenty of speed and I just really struggled to follow those last few laps behind Broc.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow finishing P2 so we will head into Bathurst and try and go one better.”
The start of the race was delayed by 15 minutes while repairs were made to the barrier at turn four after damage was sustained in a shunt during the earlier Super2 race.
All co-drivers with the exception of two - James Courtney and Craig Lowndes - started the race to kick off the Supercars endurance season.
While Erebus had the front row lock-out, Whincup was the big mover at the start of the race, making up four positions in the opening four laps as he reeled in Russell before moving past Jack Perkins.
It was a drama-free start until Grove Racing’s Garth Tander (David Reynolds) had a scary moment on lap 19 when he lost a rear left wheel, which sent him spinning off the track, hitting the armco and into the gravel at turn nine.
Cam Waters and James Moffat’s Ford became collateral damage in the incident when the errant wheel off Tander’s car hit the back of the Monster Mustang and dislodged their rear wing.
Tickford was able to get the wing repaired under the safety car when the whole field pitted while the Tander-Reynolds car was retrieved, but pushed them well back in the field.
Whincup handed the No.88 Camaro over to Feeney on lap 56 when most of the frontrunners switched to their primary drivers.
Feeney kept the Triple Eight Camaro on target through the next rounds of pit stops and was sitting about six seconds in front of Kostecki when Cameron Hill sparked a safety car on lap 140 when he ran off the track at turn nine after a steering failure.
But Feeney held his nerve to take his fifth win of the year.
SVG LOOMS LARGE AFTER SANDOWN SHOCKER
An “annoyed” Shane van Gisbergen will start from 19th on the grid for the Sandown 500 after a luckless qualifying session, but Triple Eight is backing the defending champion’s racing powers to recover in the endurance season opener.
In the week when his plans for his move to NASCAR next year were locked in, the triple Supercars champion missed out on a berth in Saturday’s top-10 shootout after several missteps in qualifying.
One of the last to emerge from pit lane for the 20-minute qualifying session, van Gisbergen was pinged for a kerb strike on his opening flying lap.
The two-time Bathurst champion was on track to improve on his mid-field position on his final run late in the session when he was hit with another kerb strike before he then ran wide off the track at turn nine.
Van Gisbergen said he felt for the team after his qualifying performance and hoped to make it up in Sunday’s race.
“It wasn’t the best day for us unfortunately. I feel sorry for everyone in my team for qualifying so poorly, but hopefully we can make some improvements for tomorrow’s race,” van Gisbergen said.
“Richie has been amazing, and his lap times have been super impressive – he’s really fast so it’s a shame we’re not starting further up the grid.
“Our emphasis tomorrow is to have a clean race, and the rest will sort itself out.”
Sitting second in the drivers’ championship behind Brodie Kostecki, van Gisbergen will now start back in the field for his assault on the 161-lap race with co-driver Richie Stanaway.
Van Gisbergen was not the only big name to miss the top-10 shootout with Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert – Ford’s leading driver in the title standings – to start from 16th.
Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton said van Gisbergen was “not happy” with his qualifying result, but there was still 500 km of racing ahead to fight back.
“We were on a couple of good laps there with SvG, but we triggered the (kerb strike) on both tyre runs,” Dutton said.
“That’s how fine it is. You are pushing hard, it’s super competitive so you do have to push hard to get into the 10 and sometimes it bites.
“Of course he’s not happy, you have to be disappointed with that when you don’t maximise the potential.
“He’s annoyed with that, but he also knows — as does everyone in the team that it’s a 500km race.
“So we need to just focus on prepping the car and giving him the best car possible and still going out there with the intention to do everything he can to win.”
Van Gisbergen produced a thrilling win from 17th place on the grid in a Sandown sprint race two years ago when he was nursing a broken collarbone.
The 34-year-old sits 137 points behind Kostecki in the championship standings, leading into the year’s two endurance races at Sandown and Bathurst.
Van Gisbergen has had three podium finishes previously in the Sandown 500, but has not tasted victory in the endurance event.
But van Gisbergen has won in five of his last six starts at Sandown in the past two years when they were sprints — rather than an endurance race.
The New Zealand star this week locked in his NASCAR plans for 2024 after signing with Trackhouse Racing for his launch into full-time racing in the United States.
Trackhouse Racing confirmed on Thursday it had signed van Gisbergen to a “developmental program” in which the Kiwi ace will drive in a combination of NASCAR’s three national series next year.
Trackhouse, the team van Gisbergen made his NASCAR debut for in July, said it would build a program for the Supercars champion incorporating select races in the Cup Series, Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series plus some late model and other races.
Van Gisbergen put his name in lights in the US when he upstaged NASCAR’s best to claim a stunning win on debut on the streets of Chicago in July.
BROWN CLAIMS POLE AHEAD OF TEAMMATE
Will Brown pipped his series-leading Erebus Motorsport teammate Brodie Kostecki to claim pole position for Sunday’s Sandown 500 after a blistering lap in the top-10 shootout to give his squad a 25-year first at the endurance event.
After Kostecki earlier claimed provisional pole ahead of Brown in qualifying, Brown turned the tables on the championship leader to secure a front-row lockout for Erebus Motorsport for the first endurance race of the season.
Brown, who is set to depart Erebus at the end of the year to join Triple Eight as the NASCAR-bound Shane van Gisbergen’s replacement, scored his fourth pole of the year with an error-free lap around the Sandown circuit.
It was the first time a team had secured a front-row lockout at the Sandown 500 since 1998 when V8 greats Mark Skaife and Greg Murphy put the Holden Racing Team first and second on the grid.
The Toowoomba pilot and Kostecki will start at the front of the field ahead of Tickford Racing star Cam Waters and Dick Johnson Racing’s Will Davison for the 161-lap race.
The third car out in the shootout, Waters had looked the early car to beat after his 1:08.97 lap which remained the benchmark until Brown’s pole-winning 1:08.66 effort as the second last car out on the track. Kostecki was unable to improve on the time with his final lap.
Brown, teaming with co-driver Jack Perkins for the endurance races, is now focused on making sure he can convert from pole.
“Enduro season is always awesome but to get pole at the Sandown 500 is amazing,” Brown said after claiming his first Sandown 500 pole.
“I knew I had a really fast teammate going out behind me and I had to put a good lap together, but I am absolutely stoked with it.
“The Coca-Cola Camaro was pretty quick that’s for sure, but I just thought I needed to do a tidy lap and not make any mistakes and that’s what I did.
“There were a few spots I could have done a little bit better, but just maximised what I had and didn’t make any mistakes.
“Really happy and really proud of all the boys and girls at Erebus Motorsport, they have given me a really fast car and I was able to deliver.
“It’s really cool to have both cars, a front row lock-out here so can’t wait to get out there and race tomorrow.”
Brown’s Sandown pole marks a significant bounce back after a tough round at Tailem Bend last month when he slipped from second to fourth in the driver standings following a DNF and two 13th-place finishes while Kostecki claimed a clean sweep.
The 25-year-old is now hoping to revive his championship charge in the enduro opener.
“It’s nice to not be a second off Brodie this weekend, so that’s good,” Brown said.
“Tailem Bend was a tough round, crashing out in the first one and then (I) made a couple of mistakes in the other ones.
“To come back and get pole position is very exciting and makes it that little bit better as well. Hopefully we can piece it together.
“In the enduros, you put them on their own pedestal - you want to win the Sandown 500 and you want to win the Bathurst 1000, but it also counts towards your points at the end of the year, so it would be good if we could finish right up there and get a fair few points from this.”
Kostecki, who has won a season-high six races this year, hoped the team could continue its strong form on Sunday.
“I’m actually quite happy, to have two Coca-Cola cars on the front row is pretty cool, starting the Sandown 500, ” Kostecki, teaming with David Russell, said.
“We have had a lot of success this year and it would be really good to keep the ball rolling during the enduros.”
Waters, who won the 2017 Sandown 500, said there would be a lot of unknowns for the Gen3 cars in the first endurance race.
“Getting them to the end will be, not hard, but I guess there will be some unknowns, so that’s one side of it,” Waters said.
“Tyre deg is just ridiculous and that’s going to be fun … we’ll just chip away tomorrow and see where we end up.”
Triple Eight young gun Broc Feeney rounded out the top five starters for Sunday’s race, while Todd Hazelwood, Matt Payne, David Reynolds, Thomas Randle and Jack Le Brocq completed the top-10.
PARITY DEBATE ROLLS ON AMID CONCERN OVER CAMARO DOMINANCE
Tickford Racing team boss Tim Edwards has labelled the dominance of the Camaros on the opening day of practice for the Supercars endurance season at Sandown as “quite concerning”.
Edwards said he was preparing for a heavy night of data analysis to determine where his Ford Mustangs could make up ground on their Chevrolet rivals or to establish if there was something “inherently different between the cars”.
Led by series leader Brodie Kostecki, the Camaros produced the top eight fastest times in Friday’s third and final practice session.
Tickford Racing star Cam Waters was the best of the Ford Mustangs in ninth place ahead of Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert in 10th.
Nine of the top 10 cars in the earlier co-driver session were also Chevrolets.
Parity has been an ongoing debate in the opening season of Supercars’ Gen3 era with work still ongoing behind the scenes on the issue.
Edwards said the early form of the Camaros at Sandown was a worry.
“It is quite concerning at this point,” Edwards said.
“It absolutely means something because it means that there are eight Camaros faster than us.
“We’ve got a lot of data from today so we will spend tonight sifting through it and figuring out if it is something we are doing or if it’s just something inherently different between the cars.
“At the moment, on the surface, you could easily go ‘There’s a parity issue’.
“But until we actually go through the data and we will compare, we tried different things on different cars as well, so we will do that tonight and that will either give us a better idea tomorrow or worry us more for tomorrow.”
Thomas Randle was the next best of the Tickford cars in 15th place in Friday’s final practice.
The Camaro practice form comes after Tickford had one of its best weekends of the year in the last round at Tailem Bend when Randle claimed three straight podiums and Waters returned to the podium for the first time since round one in Newcastle.
But Edwards admitted the squad had been nervous about how it would fare at the Sandown track.
“We were nervous coming to this track because it’s effectively a couple of drag strips either way, which is very different to the last track that we were at,” Edwards said.
“We were nervous coming in here and unfortunately our nervousness is only amplified throughout today.
“We’ve got to look at it too and make sure it’s not something we are doing because obviously there are a million things we are doing in the way we set the cars up.
“Despite everything that is going on in the background and whether there are parity issues and all that, we have still got to race with what we have got.
“So the challenge for me is to keep people focused and say ‘That’s what we’ve got, let’s just make the most of it and if we can improve it, we will’.
“Otherwise we have just got to make the best of it this weekend.”
Edwards praised the work Supercars had been doing behind the scenes on the parity issue, but said the tools used to establish parity needed to move forward.
“There is a lot going on, to be fair to Supercars, but it’s not an easy fix,” Edwards said.
“It’s become apparent to everybody, including Supercars, the tools that were used up until this year are no longer good enough.
“We need to make sure the parity is right using more superior tools than we have ever had. That’s why they are looking at wind tunnels and transient dynos and all these other things they are doing because the tools they have used in the past aren’t good enough anymore.”
PRACTICE WRAP: CAMAROS DOMINATE
Brodie Kostecki declared his series leading team Erebus Motorsport “can’t do too much wrong” after he started the Supercars endurance season with the fastest practice lap at Sandown on Friday.
As the Chevrolet Camaros dominated the day’s final practice session, Kostecki continued the hot form that delivered him a clean sweep at Tailem Bend last round to lead home two Erebus cars in the top three.
After Triple Eight topped the first two Sandown 500 practice sessions on Friday, Kostecki – teaming with co-driver David Russell – emerged with the fastest lap time of the day (1min 08.712sec) – ahead of Red Bull young gun Broc Feeney and his Erebus teammate Will Brown.
As endurance racing returned to Sandown for the first time since 2019, Kostecki led an all-Camaro top eight in the third practice session with Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters the best of the Fords in ninth place.
Kostecki holds a 137-point lead over Triple Eight’s Shane van Gisbergen, who finished fifth fastest, in the Supercars championship battle ahead of the season’s two endurance races at Sandown and Bathurst.
The 25-year-old, sharing the car with Russell for the third straight year, said the early signs were strong for Erebus.
“The car has rolled out really speedy and it seems like everyone is gelling really well together and it seems like we can’t do too much wrong,” Kostecki said.
“It’s only Friday, but the car feels really speedy and ‘D-Russ’ did an awesome job in his co-driver session and we’ll keep our heads down for the final practice session tomorrow and we go and qualify.
“I think the continuity between us four (drivers) is important with these cars and everyone knows each other quite well and it just seems real easy at the moment and driver changes we all know what we are like and I’m just really looking forward to Sunday.”
Earlier in the day, wildcard Zane Goddard (Craig Lowndes) led a Triple Eight top-three in the co-driver only practice session ahead of Kiwi Richie Stanaway (van Gisbergen) and Jamie Whincup (Feeney).
Feeney set down the fastest time in the opening morning practice session before handing the car over to his team boss Whincup. Kostecki was just shy of Feeney’s time in second, while PremiAir Racing’s James Golding came in third.
Pit-stops, refuelling and driver changes were a heavy focus for all the teams in the final practice session ahead of Sunday’s 161-lap race.
Feeney, who sits third in the drivers’ championship, said his opening day behind the wheel alongside his boss had been encouraging.
“It’s cool to be back at Sandown, it’s a lot of fun and the first few laps around here are pretty wild, you are just hanging on and throwing the car on the kerbs, it’s been a while since we’ve done that,” Feeney said.
“It’s good to be back here. Working with Jamie is always awesome and we get to do it for two events this year.
“It’s been a pretty good day so far I think. But for sure we have still got things to work on to be there on Sunday.”
Feeney predicted maintaining tyre-life in Sunday’s race was going to be a challenge.
“I think a lot of the co-drivers did some longer runs, so they could probably speak on it a little bit more, but it’s going to be easy,” Feeney said.
“I mean, they are big tanks. It’s a hard one to pick on Friday, but I’m sure it won’t be easy.”
Whincup won the most recent Sandown 500, alongside Lowndes, in 2019.
There is one more all-driver practice session, qualifying and the top-10 shootout on Saturday before Sunday’s opening endurance race.
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