Feeney dominated the season but missed out on a maiden championship crown to Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert in a dramatic Adelaide finale.
The Triple Eight driver was controversially spun by Ryan Wood on the opening lap before later suffering engine trouble that cruelled any hopes of a fightback.
Accepting the teams’ championship trophy at the Supercars’ Gala Awards, Triple Eight MD Whincup put the devastation into perspective with a dig at his own on-track misfortunes.
“That was the worst day I’ve ever had at the racetrack, to be honest, and I’ve had a few,” he said.
“You look at the Bathurst highlights, there’s been a few from me…
“But with all the results, to walk away absolutely gutted, that’s what the sport is all about.
“It must be in the disclaimer somewhere.
“We don’t read it when we sign it, but you can’t have the highs without the lows.”
Seven-time champion Whincup stepped back from full-time driving at the end of 2021 to hand over the #88 entry to rising star Feeney.
Whincup has co-driven alongside Feeney in the endurance races since but will focus on his management role with the squad next season.
Speaking to Speedcafe in the aftermath of the race, Whincup was clearly emotional when talking of Feeney and engineer Martin Short missing out on the title.
“All we can do now is try to turn it into strength,” he said.
“You know, it’ll go one way or the other. It’ll be devastation, and we get heavily affected by it for a long period of time, or we turn it into strength and come back stronger next year.
“So we’ve got to make sure we handle it well, to make sure it’s that it’s the latter.”
While ultimately let down by the engine reliability issue, Whincup doubled down on his initial take that the contact from Wood was “pretty grubby stuff”.
“100 percent it was a strategy,” he said of how the opening lap played out.
“We’ve been warned against that, non-championship contenders getting involved in the championship in that way.
“There’s been some big warnings against making sure that that doesn’t happen, and it did happen.
“But I don’t want to come across as a sore loser, because we’re not.
“We battle hard, we race hard, we work unbelievably hard, and it bloody hurts not to get the results, but I don’t want to take anything away from anybody else.”
Whincup stressed at the Gala Awards that Mostert and WAU are worthy winners of the title following the first running of the Finals Series format.
“It’s important to us that our story only adds to the Chazzy Mostert, WAU story,” he said on stage.
“You guys are deserving champions. You did the job when it mattered, so from us to you, congratulations.
“It’s been an incredible season.”
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