Feeney scores Saturday pole double in Darwin

Championship leader Feeney stormed to back-to-back pole positions as teammate and title rival Will Brown struggled to 14th and 17th in the two sessions.

The Race 2 qualifying session was run on the super soft tyres, throwing a curve ball at teams and drivers.

It somewhat shook up the order with seven Camaros progressing to Q2, flipping the script after just two made the cut in the earlier soft tyre session.

It was the same man on top, though, as Feeney clocked 1:06.4116s in the dying moments to deny Anton De Pasquale pole by 0.0571s.

Feeney thought he’d missed the marker until engineer Martin Short gave him the good news.

“I was so disappointed,” said Feeney.

“I thought I was third. I was half way down the lane, I was frustrated, and Marty goes, ‘that’s pole again’. I couldn’t believe it.

“I’m stoked, to get a double pole here is awesome.

“That session was a little bit more challenging. I feel like all year, in the last part on the re-used tyre we’re more competitive than the green tyre on the super soft.

“We made a little change for that last part and it was better. Eight [poles] for the year, that’s awesome.”

Feeney defeats Ford onslaught for Darwin Race 1 pole

Ford runners Cam Waters, Kai Allen and Brodie Kostecki will start third through fifth, the Dick Johnson Racing driver having earlier topped Q1.

The remainder of the 10 was filled by Andre Heimgartner, Jack Le Brocq, Bryce Fullwood, Cooper Murray and Richie Stanaway.

Both Walkinshaw Andretti United Mustangs failed to progress to Q2 on the super soft rubber, with Ryan Wood just on the wrong side of the cut-off in 11th.

“That one was all on me then,” said the young Kiwi. “We just couldn’t phase the front tyres properly and it caught us out quite badly.”

Teammate Chaz Mostert was mired down in 23rd.

“It’s such a unique place here Darwin and it’s kind of been a bit of a bogey for us in the past,” said Mostert.

“I have to put my hand up on this one, I probably steered the car down the wrong path this weekend so far.

“When you’re not in the window it feels like you’re a million miles away.”

Brown was meanwhile left perplexed by his lowly qualifying and the deficit to his flying teammate Feeney.

“I felt like I made a mistake in the first qualifying this morning but bolted those super soft tyres on and was just nowhere, P17,” said Brown.

“Broc is doing a really good job, I’ve got to look at what he’s doing. I didn’t really make any mistakes anywhere, I just lost time throughout the lap.”

Results: Darwin Triple Crown Race 2 qualifying