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The recent Gold Coast 500 distilled the drivers’ championship fight to a battle between the Red Bulls, with Ford flyers Chaz Mostert and Cam Waters eliminated from contention.
It’s the first time since 2017 that Triple Eight has entered the final round with both of its drivers in with a mathematical chance of the title and the first since ’16 where they’ve been the only contenders.
“It means the boys can have some fun, go hard and race hard and tussle it out amongst themselves at Adelaide,” said team manager Mark Dutton in the aftermath of the Gold Coast 500.
Already being guaranteed one of its drivers will win the title is a major achievement for the team in the first year of the Brown/Feeney line-up.
It’s the first season since 2004 that Triple Eight has tackled without a Supercars champion in its line-up, missing the anchoring qualities of Craig Lowndes, Jamie Whincup or Shane van Gisbergen.
The combination of Brown, 26, and Feeney, 22, was tipped to bring fireworks but, aside from a scrape on the way to a 1-2 at the Sandown 500, it’s been largely smooth sailing.
“They knew from the outset they would be each other’s biggest competitors for the year, so we had to manage that as a group,” added Dutton.
“It was easy with the personalities. You’ve got Will and Broc who are two legends, the race engineers work so well together, it’s been a lot of fun.”
The championship is very much Brown’s to lose. He holds a 180-point buffer over Feeney with 150 on offer for victory in each of the two Adelaide races.
Feeney stated before the Gold Coast that his target was to get the margin below 150 points ahead of Adelaide.
“Look, it’s a long shot going to Adelaide, but we’re still in the hunt,” Feeney said of his prospects.
“I’ll just go to Adelaide and try and have some fun and try and win some races. I think the pressure is a bit more off now.”
Brown also has his sights on race wins in Adelaide. He does not, though, mention the word ‘fun’ when asked about the task ahead.
“I think I go there and try and win in a race at the end of the day. You qualify up the front and you stay out of the mess, really,” said Brown.
“You know, qualifying second and running second all day [last Sunday] I wasn’t really any chance of… there’s always a chance, but I wasn’t caught up in any crashes or that sort of stuff.
“There’s no point going there and trying to be conservative. I’ll try and qualify as far up as I can and try and win another race.”
Brown endured a shocker at the Adelaide 500 12 months ago, crashing out of the Saturday race on the opening lap in an incident which coincidentally guaranteed teammate Brodie Kostecki the title.
Kostecki and Brown remain good friends, but that doesn’t mean the 2023 champion has any advice for his mate.
“I think he knows what else to do,” said Kostecki of the situation.
Feeney already has one eye on next year, when the radical new Finals format means that drivers will have to perform strongly in the last rounds to have any chance of winning the championship.
“I want to learn a lot in this back half of the season, because next year it’s going to be super important,” he said, having broken his Gold Coast hoodoo with a pair of thirds last weekend.
“It was good for me to have a solid round [on the Gold Coast] and also have a solid round hopefully at Adelaide and try and get a couple of trophies and build on that for next year.”
Second in the championship would still mark a career best for Feeney, who was third last year. Brown’s best was also recorded in 2023, when he ended up fifth for Erebus Motorsport.
