The 42-lap race ended with the top three in the order they started: Feeney from Cam Waters and Matt Payne.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Feeney, who later revealed he had battled a clutch issue, while mid-pack incidents resulted in two early Safety Car periods.

The chaos kicked off at the opening corner of the race as Jaxon Evans was elbowed wide by Richie Stanaway and into the armco barrier on the exit.

Macauley Jones was then spun amid a concertina incident at Turn 5 before the Safety Car was called to retrieve Evans’ stricken Camaro.

RACING IN THE TOP END WITH EARLY DRAMA!!!

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— Supercars (@supercars) June 21, 2025

The restart six laps later delivered more trouble as an engine failure for Ryan Wood caused the WAU Mustang to slow in the middle of the pack.

A resulting concertina included Jack Le Brocq being knocked into the inside concrete wall, pulling the left-front wheel off the Erebus Camaro.

Again the Safety Car was called, but not before more contact at Turn 5 – this time between David Reynolds, Nick Percat and Richie Stanaway.

That left Stanaway to limp back to the pits with broken suspension, joining Wood, Le Brocq and Evans on the sidelines.

ABSOLUTE CHAOS ON THE SAFETY CAR RESTART!

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A second restart on lap 12 proved far smoother as Feeney led Waters and Brodie Kostecki, who pounced on Payne for third at the first opportunity.

However, minor contact between the cars led to a five-second time penalty for Kostecki, who fell from contention when he served the punishment at his pit stop.

While Percat and De Pasquale kicked off the pit stop cycle on lap 17, the lead trio pressed on for another 10 laps.

Feeney entered pit lane with a 1.5s lead over Waters and left with a 4s advantage after the Red Bull crew elected for two tyres and Tickford four.

The Triple Eight driver emerged only narrowly ahead of Payne, who had pitted six laps earlier and almost undercut the championship leader.

Waters’ four-tyre choice meant he dropped behind Payne, Fullwood and Courtney, but his superior grip meant he soon cleared all three.

At that point Waters faced a 2.8s deficit to Feeney and eight laps in which to close down the Red Bull Camaro.

While that promised to yield a late showdown Feeney never truly appeared threatened and took the flag 1.7s clear of the Monster Mustang.

As it turned out, Feeney’s biggest concern was from within his own car, revealing a clutch issue had been present throughout the second half of the race.

“We had to overcome a bit of adversity there, I had a clutch issue for most of the race,” he said.

“It was like my stop disappeared, initially I thought I’d completely lost it, it was going all the way to the floor.

“After a while I could sort of manage it a bit, but it was really hurting my rear tyre life.

“I was a bit worried about the pit stop. I went down the straight one lap, put it in, and it got to the limiter.

“So I said, ‘that’s good, it will work in the pit stop’. I’m just stoked, because it was very stressful for a lot of that race.”

Payne was 3.7s behind Waters at the finish in third ahead of Bryce Fullwood and James Courtney, who beat Chaz Mostert to fifth place after a spirited late battle.

Filling seventh through 10th were Nick Percat, Will Brown, Kostecki and Andre Heimgartner, who led a portion of the race before finally making his pit stop.

Brown’s 14th place grid slot put him in the middle of the early chaos, but the reigning champion avoided disaster to keep his points tally ticking over.

Twenty two of the 25 cars were classified as finishers with Stanaway having rejoined following repairs to take the chequered flag seven laps down.

Evans escaped uninjured from his early incident but is in doubt for the afternoon’s second race due to damage on the #12 SCT Camaro.

“It’s rough racing down the back there,” he said.

“I felt like I got escorted wide exit of [Turn] 1, interlocked wheels and sent me to the fence. Pretty heavily damaged, unfortunately we won’t be out this afternoon.”

The day’s second 42-lap race will get underway at 3:10pm local time.

Results: Repco Supercars Championship betr Darwin Triple Crown Race 1