Feeney tops Practice 1, drama for Le Brocq and Stanaway

Feeney headed up an all-Camaro top five with Grove Racing’s Stanaway sixth at 1.0463s off the pace after the hour-long session, the first for the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship season, although he missed the majority of it after hitting the wall at The Dipper.

Despite forecasts of rain, the weather was dry but blustery at Mount Panorama for Practice 1.

A problem for the Erebus Motorsport entry of Le Brocq caused a red flag in the second minute, before drivers even had a chance to complete an out lap around the 6.213km circuit.

The #9 TFH Camaro had stopped on the run to The Cutting and was towed back to the pits by the recovery ute, with the team reporting an engine oil pressure issue.

Pit exit reopened after an eight-minute halt to proceedings, and the fastest times on the board once drivers were able to achieve anything representative was a 2:07.9551s for Feeney (#88 Red Bull Ampol Camaro) and a 2:08.5702s for Triple Eight team-mate Will Brown (#87 Red Bull Ampol Camaro).

Those were still the fastest laps after the opening runs proper, with Brad Jones Racing’s Andre Heimgartner (#8 R&J Batteries Camaro) third on a 2:08.8921s and Stanaway first of the Ford drivers in fourth on a 2:09.0014s.

Stanway caused a second red flag of the session when, on his second run, he hit the wall at The Dipper and was instructed to park the damaged #26 Penrite Mustang as he crawled onto Conrod Straight.

Less than 31 minutes remained when the track went green again, with no advance on the aforementioned top four at that point.

There was with just over a quarter of an hour remaining when new Matt Stone Racing driver Nick Percat (#10 Bendix Camaro) climbed to second from 10th on a 2:08.2135s.

There were few changes at the pointy end of the order thereafter, with Feeney prevailing by 0.2584s over Percat, then Brown, Heimgartner, and MSR’s Cameron Hill (#4 Tyrepower Camaro) in fifth on a 2:08.9630s.

Stanaway’s time stood up for sixth, from David Reynolds (#20 Tradie Beer Camaro), Matt Payne (#19 Penrite Mustang), Todd Hazelwood (#99 TFH Camaro), and Anton De Pasquale (#11 Shell V-Power Mustang).

Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters was slowest of the 23 drivers to set a time, with a 2:10.1728s in the #6 Monster Energy Mustang.

He was one of a number to have offs during the session, with new aerodynamic packages and/or the weather conditions catching several out, while Tickford was also said to be running an experimental set-up programme.

Practice 2, another 60-minute session, starts this afternoon at 16:20 local time/AEDT.

Results: Practice 1