Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Broc Feeney is predicting a “battle” to overhaul Erebus Motorsport in this year’s Repco Supercars Championship.

Erebus left the first event of the season on top of the teams’ championship, although in somewhat fortunate circumstances considering Triple Eight lost its one-two in Race 1 due to a disqualification over an illegally mounted cooling system in each of its Camaros.

The Barry Ryan-led squad was not uncompetitive in Newcastle, of course, with Brodie Kostecki qualifying on pole position for Race 1.

However, it was at Albert Park where Kostecki and Will Brown were particularly potent, the former scoring two race wins and Triple Eight the other two.

Erebus is now on top of both championships, with its Melbourne race winner holding sway in the drivers’ standings, in which Shane van Gisbergen is third at 86 points off the pace and Feeney seventh at another 60 in arrears.

The latter has made winning the championship a goal in this, his second full season in the top tier of Supercars and, at Albert Park, converted a first pole position at Albert Park into a second race win of his career.

The Red Bull Ampol Racing drivers would be above Kostecki on the points table if not for the Newcastle disqualification, but Feeney is wary of the performance of the Coca-Cola Camaros.

“For sure, it’s been a good start,” he said of his 2023 season so far.

“In a sense, we’re sort of building on what we did last year; we had a solid year but it’s about making that next step and trying to be in the fight more consistently, so it’s been a really good start to the year.

“Obviously, a lot of change,” he added, in reference to the start of the Gen3 era.

“These Erebus boys are pretty quick as well, so it’s certainly going to be a battle this year.

“We’ve got some points to catch up on; luckily we had four decent results [at Albert Park] so, for sure, I feel like we’re in the mix.

“We’ve sort of got a bit of catching up to do to get to these boys [but] it’s good to be fighting for the podium more often than not at the moment.”

The next event is the Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint at Wanneroo Raceway on April 28-30.