Race 2 of the Repco Supercars Championship at the Sydney 500 showed officials will let the drivers have at it, at least the drivers up the front.
Triple Eight’s star drivers Broc Feeney and Will Brown came up short in the fight at the end of the 52-lap epic. Tickford Racing’s Cameron Waters was victorious by 0.03s after light nose-to-tail contact at the final turn before side-drafting Feeney to the chequered flag.
The well-documented fight to the finish reached fever pitch when Waters made contact with Feeney and sent him into a spin at Turn 4 with five laps remaining.
What followed was a series of incidents, the first of which included a re-dress. From then on there were several moments of contact between the top three drivers in what could be considered “hard” racing.
The ultimate outcome was the incredible finish that was widely praised by fans, commentators, and the drivers.
“I think that race sets a new standard as to what we can and can’t do and I think it’s good,” said Brown.
“I think we need to race hard. All the fans love it. It was a cool race. We just need to know what we can get away with and get into it and keep doing that.”
Brown and Waters have been vocal advocates of harder racing, allowing drivers to be aggressive in attack and defence.
Feeney said he’s happy if that’s the standard for the rest of the season.
WOW! There’s contact for the lead but Race Control has let it play out!
Follow all the action from the Thrifty Sydney 500 with our Live Feed here 👉 https://t.co/qyu6AAgclo#RepcoSC #Supercars pic.twitter.com/AXNIktYdey
— Supercars (@supercars) February 22, 2025
“There was a fair bit of contact in that race, but I think they’ve probably shown that they’re going to let you race a bit harder this year by the looks of it,” said Feeney.
“I think with the re-dresses, like the first one, Cam sort of let me back side-by-side, so I probably didn’t think that was super great. That’s why I ran him wide at Corporate Hill.
“Then at the last corner, I think he tried to re-address once again, but then was able to slipstream past me.
“Anyway, it’s tough racing. The fans absolutely loved it, so I think everyone’s gonna agree that that’s probably the way that we need to race now.
“Obviously, there’s probably a new style that we can probably approach this year if we’re allowed to race hard and bumping into each other. It seems everyone’s really enjoyed it.”
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS?!?!?!
Cam Waters wins in Sydney!! #RepcoSC #Supercars pic.twitter.com/Gv1h8utcRM
— Supercars (@supercars) February 22, 2025
The noticeable change in how contact is being policed coincided with the advent of Supercars new-for-2025 Finals Series.
“Obviously with the Finals coming in, there’s been a lot of talk over the last couple of years about how they want the rules to go for racing and I think we’re going nearly more and more NASCAR-style where, in general, you can sort of rub up a little bit more,” Feeney added.
“You can see tonight, obviously we’re all running into each other quite a lot, that’s probably what everyone wants to see. I’m sure everyone in here agrees that’s probably one of the best races there’s been in a while for Supercars and it came with a lot of running into each other.
“As Will said, you don’t see that in F1 or a lot of other categories around the world, so it’s probably exciting Not the best when you’re on the worst side of it. I suppose we can race pretty hard.”
The drivers do want some clarity, however. Brown noted that the situation would have likely been looked at differently had the battle not been for the lead.
“It is a bit of a grey area now,” said Brown.
“You probably need to take the gloves off completely or… from there, it’s a hard one at the end of the day to know because the race was so exciting tonight you don’t want to penalize anyone because it was so good for everyone at home.
“Everyone enjoyed it and watched it — to penalize anyone would have been very disappointing after the race. Also if you’re doing that for fifth place now they’re going to penalize you know what I mean?
“So it’s a very grey area to now know if you can do that for fifth place or if it’s just you can do it for first, and that’s the hardest thing right now is for us going into the rest of the season is, can you get away with that every day.”
He joked: “We’ll get some clarity when we next run into each someone and see if we get the penalty.”
Waters, who won the race and was the instigator of the lion’s share of the chaos, backed Supercars driving standards advisor Craig Baird to be pragmatic.
“I think Bairdo is usually pretty good at looking at all different incidents,” Waters reasoned.
“We’ve always hit people into the corner or tried to loosen them up and things like that, so that’s all part of Supercars.
“I just think tonight was just a bit off the chain because of the circumstances. I had a really fast car, I was hunting Broc down, I had a dip and then obviously brought Will into it as well, so it was probably the perfect storm.”
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