Triple Eight suffers Townsville 500 qualifying shocker

After the first qualifying runs, Brown brought out the red flag shortly after exiting the pits when he stopped his Ford Mustang on the run to Turn 2 with a loose left front wheel.

The brief stoppage set up a three-minute dash to the end of the session. Feeney improved from 17th to sixth and Brown to 10th but were eventually demoted to 16th and 19th as other drivers improved.

“The first run was really weird,” said Feeney on Fox Sports’ broadcast.

“I was a second off what I did in that first run earlier today. Not really sure what went on there, just struggling.”

Brown said his car was making a “ really bad noise” and wondered if he had an engine issue before his team told him about the loose wheel.

“I switched off, just stopped, and I was trying to ask them on the TV what it looked like, if there was something else stuck there or what,” said Brown.

“We worked out it was just a loose wheel. I tired to just bring it back.

“Not a great session obviously. A stuff-up there and then we’re slow.”

Pole position went to Dick Johnson Racing driver Brodie Kostecki, who converted his practice pace with a 1:12.8214s.

Cameron Waters was second for Tickford Racing with a 1:12.8555s to end up 0.0341s away from Kostecki’s pole position lap.

“It feels like a trip back to 12 months ago, Cam and I started on the front row. It should be a pretty exciting race this afternoon,” said Kostecki after scoring his fifth pole position of the season.

“It’s great to have car speed once again. The car has unloaded well pretty much every time we’ve hit the track this year. Big credit to the whole engineering group.

“It’ll be nice and warm this afternoon, so hopefully it hangs onto its tyres.”

Matt Payne put himself in prime position to take the lead in the drivers’ championship by qualifying third for Grove Racing.

Chaz Mostert was fourth in his Walkinshaw TWG Racing Toyota Supra.

Perhaps most impressive was Thomas Randle, who rebounded from his practice problems to qualify his Tickford Racing Ford Mustang in fifth.

Kai Allen (Grove Racing), Ryan Woodl (Walkinshaw TWG), Jack Le Brocq (Matt Stone Racing), Jayden Ojeda (PremiAir Racing) and James Golding (Blanchard Racing Team) rounded out het top 10.

PremiAir Racing’s Declan Fraser was the first driver on the outside looking in who narrowly missed out on making the second leg of qualifying. He’ll start alongside 12th place qualifier Aaron Cameron for the Blanchard Racing Team.

Results: Repco Supercars Championship NTI Townsville 500, Qualifying Race 1