David Reynolds argues that Broc Feeney was at fault for the late-race clash which him penalised out of the top 10 at The Bend.
As Feeney drove his Red Bull Ampol Racing Camaro out of the gravel trap, Reynolds took over ninth position and held it until the chequered flag, only to be issued a 15-second penalty which relegated the #26 Penrite Racing Mustang to 20th.
“Dave got into my rear bar at [Turn] 17 and that’s why he got up beside me,” claimed Feeney.
“So, I squeezed him a bit in the last corner but he fired in pretty hard and that’s what got my rear-right.
“I started sinking in the gravel and thought I was going to stop.
“But, yeah my race down the drain,” he concluded, having finished last in the 25-car field.
Reynolds, though, argued that the Triple Eight Race Engineering driver caused his own downfall.
“Down into 17, I sort of got alongside Broc, and then we were running up to the last corner and we sort of bumped wheels a fair few times,” said the Grove Racing driver.
“Then he turned in so hard at the last minute, it actually made me oversteer, and so I sort of four-wheel slid into him, and that’s what made him spin around.
“It’s really unfortunate, but if he didn’t turn in so hard and aggressive and made me, like, oversteer, we would have just drove side-by-side and duelled it out down to Turn 1.
“So, yeah, I don’t know why I got a rather large penalty. I’ve done way worse things than that and got away with it.
“I don’t want to roll out a Jamie Whincup style comment, but I’m thinking about it.”
According to stewards, the incident was deemed a case of Careless Driving.
The stewards report read, “Car 26 was attempting to overtake Car 88, Broc Feeney, on the inside at turn 18.
“Car 26 had sufficient overlap on Car 88 and Car 88 left racing room for Car 26 on the inside.
“However, Car 26 locked rear brakes and oversteered into the side of Car 88 and Car 88 left the track into the gravel trap and lost positions.”
Feeney had two wheels in the dirt earlier in the race when he was chased to the edge of the main straight as he passed Chaz Mostert at the start of Lap 13.
On that occasion, just a bad sportsmanship flag ensued, stewards explaining, “Because Car 88 did not lose a position, the matter was not referred to the Stewards but the Race Director issued a Bad Sportsmanship Flag to Car 25.”
Triple Eight was, though, penalised 30 teams’ championship points and fined $1500 for a pit stop breach, namely that Shane van Gisbergen’s #97 Camaro was dropped with a rattle gun still connected.
Van Gisbergen retained fifth position in the Race 22 classification but is now 137 points behind championship leader Brodie Kostecki.
Feeney is still third in the standings, but is now 228 points in arrears of Kostecki.
Reflecting on the event, the #88 Camaro pilot said, “Overall, it’s been a very tough weekend.
“We’ve been pretty slow in qualifying unfortunately and started more towards the back then we would’ve liked. We didn’t have great starts in either of today’s races.
“We made some changes for the last race today and the car felt really good. We had good speed and were pretty quick out there.
“Unfortunately, we got in a bit of contact right at the end there. It’s been a really tough weekend, we lost a lot of points to the lead even though we’ve moved up to third in the championship.
“We’ll hopefully do some making up in the next few rounds to close the gap to those guys in the lead.”
Triple Eight will test at Queensland Raceway next month, before the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 on September 15-17, when Feeney will pair up with Jamie Whincup.
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