The Red Bull Ampol Racing driver remains second in the Supercars Championship but has slipped to 136 points behind team-mate Will Brown.
Feeney was run down by Brown in the Sunday Taupo race and Car #87 once again had the wood on Car #88 at the Perth SuperSprint, with Triple Eight Team Principal Jamie Whincup saying a review into the discrepancy in performance would be “homework” before the trek to Hidden Valley.
Feeney himself said ahead of the Darwin Triple Crown, “Obviously, Will’s been doing a great job this year and super-consistent.
“To be competitive and fighting for a championship, we certainly need to not have the bad days that we’ve been having.
“The last two have probably been a little bit tougher than what we’d like – Taupo Sunday was good, but we lost a bit on Saturday – but Perth was a pretty tough one to take to be honest.
“It was a was certainly an off weekend for us so we just need to make sure that we don’t have that happen again because it’s a long championship but [after] a tough weekend, you’ve got to claw back a lot.
Secure your spot today.
“Going to Darwin, hopefully we can be back in the mix and get some good points.”
Speaking to Speedcafe this week, Triple Eight Race Engineering Team Manager Mark Dutton indicated that the pace gap between Brown and Feeney is likely down to small differences, including tyre management.
“A lot of it is just very, very small differences that, depending on when you run your tyre strategies, can exaggerate it,” he said.
“But, there’s some little set-up differences in the cars. We keep trying to develop the cars [and] they work very, very close together, and you try and have very similar set-ups, but because you’re always trying to develop the car, inevitably there’s some differences here and there.
“Then there’s just differences in driving styles as well, and everything goes under the microscope.
“Broc’s doing a cracker job, he’s super-fast.
“Will’s got a few more years under the belt as far as the racing goes, so I think some of that is tyre management.”
The nadir of Feeney’s last two Supercars events was arguably Sunday qualifying at Wanneroo when, in his own words, he was “nowhere near it” in taking only 12th on the grid, although he did race forward to seventh in the 55-lapper which followed.
Fortunately for him, Hidden Valley Raceway is a venue at which he was the ‘round winner’ in 2023, having been victorious in one race and outscored then-team-mate Shane van Gisbergen by a 38-point margin.
“I’m keen to get to Darwin,” remarked the 2023 Sandown 500 winner.
“It was probably our strongest round last year as a whole; three podiums.
“I love going up there; it’s always good fun, good time of the year to be up there.
“Normally, you can have a good weekend when you’re having a bit of fun, so looking forward to it and hopefully we can get back on top.”
Practice 1 starts on Friday at 11:35 local time/12:05 AEST.
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