‘Blind’ Mostert explains unnecessary Feeney defence

Mostert led the majority of the second leg of the Adelaide 500, although did so with Feeney breathing down his neck.

Their battle came to a head during the second round of stops when Feeney was released into the path of Mostert.

Feeney redressed the position immediately but was still slapped with a 15-second penalty, which put a premium on clearing Mostert quickly and building a gap.

For Mostert, the job was as simple as staying within 15 seconds, which led to advice from his own garage to not try and fight his Triple Eight rival.

That was advice Mostert opted not to take, his defence eventually leading to contact at Turn 6 which left Mostert in the wall.

While the contact was Feeney’s fault, and drew a second 15-second penalty, the unnecessary nature of the defence was questionable.

When asked to explain why he continued to fight, Mostert gave two clear reasons – one, he was worried he could stay within 15 seconds of Feeney, and two, he was missing his right-hand mirror.

“I was a little bit worried about his pace, to be honest,” Mostert told the broadcast. “I didn’t think 15 seconds… if he got in clean air he was going to be really fast, I wanted to make it as hard as possible.

“I didn’t have the right hand mirror at that point and I’m like, ‘I don’t think he’s really that far up’, but I was kind of blind there.

“Look, it happens. I hope it was entertaining for everyone. I had to drive a three-tyred car back across the line. I thought I was going to have to pit because it was pretty bad.

“Hopefully the last couple of laps were entertaining. There’s probably about four or five guys pretty pissed off with me.”

😱

Follow all the action of the VAILO Adelaide 500 on our Live Feed here 👉 https://t.co/qyu6AAgclo#RepcoSC #Supercars pic.twitter.com/Lv9ARH0bl7

— Supercars (@supercars) November 17, 2024

That final line is a reference to what became a bitter battle for a podium spot, Mostert just able to hold of Thomas Randle, Will Davison and Nick Percat to finish second.

That was despite battling a heavily wounded car from both moments of contact with Feeney.

“It had pretty bad right front damage after the pit stop stuff, it was wheel-to-wheel contact,” he said. “So it didn’t feel quite right in that last stint which made me a bit more vulnerable.

“And after it went into the wall, I don’t know what the rear tyres were doing, but they weren’t talking to each other.

“I didn’t know if I was going to do a tyre, it had smoke from the guard. We need to get it on a set-up patch when we got home and see how bad it was. But it was pretty loose after that.”