Feeney defeats Ford onslaught for Darwin Race 1 pole

The Red Bull Ampol Racing driver continued his hot run of form to top both segments of the qualifying session, which was run on the soft compound tyre.

Feeney ended the critical Q2 segment fastest on 1:05.9841s, less than a tenth of a second ahead of Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters.

“To be honest this weekend hasn’t been too smooth for me,” said Feeney, who won both races at Hidden Valley last year and now has seven poles in 2025.

“Yesterday I felt like we were struggling a bit and even in qualifying it was just a bit messy.

“But somehow we keep dragging this thing to the front in qualifying. The team has done a fantastic job.

“As I said, I wasn’t too comfortable last night and [engineer] Marty [Short] did a great job to get this thing back on fire.”

Matt Payne, Ryan Wood and Brodie Kostecki made it four Ford teams in the top five places at the end of the session, a stark contrast to the Friday form guide.

Kostecki used his new tyres early in Q2, setting a benchmark for the others to chase.

Bryce Fullwood ended up sixth in the only other Camaro to progress to Q2, ahead of Kai Allen, James Courtney, Thomas Randle and Chaz Mostert.

Waters made it through to Q2 despite running off at Turn 1 on his final lap of Q1.

Feeney’s teammate Will Brown was the big scalp of Q1, ending up 14th and 0.2976s from the fastest time set in the segment by teammate Feeney.

“I just made a mistake at the hairpin. It was my own fault,” Brown confessed. “It’s a bit disappointing, another bad quali by me.”

While Brown had a clear reason for his failure to progress, plenty of others were left scratching their heads amid a field separated by tiny margins.

They included Team 18’s Anton De Pasquale (19th) and Brad Jones Racing’s Friday pacesetter Andre Heimgartner (21st).

“Just not fast enough,” said De Pasquale. “We chucked a green at it and it felt worse than the used tyre at the start, which is usually a bad sign.

“You fall in and out of the window sometimes without doing anything and sometimes doing too much.”

Heimgartner notably did not complete a second lap on his new tyre at the end of the session, but refused to blame that for his position.

“It’s just shit. I don’t really know, it didn’t feel that terrible. It is what it is,” he said.

Tickford Racing wildcard Rylan Gray ended the session at the bottom of the 25-car field, albeit just 0.6950s from the Q1 best.

Results: Darwin Triple Crown Race 1 qualifying