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The 22-year-old reported losing up to six seconds in pit lane during his run to third in today’s race with the refuelling rate problem that has haunted various teams in the Gen3 era.
PremiAir Racing’s lead entry fell afoul of it at the Bathurst 1000 a fortnight ago and Feeney was the latest to strike a slower than expected rate in both Gold Coast pit stops.
“I think it was five or six seconds to Cam (Waters, race winner) throughout the race,” said Feeney of the time lost, which meant he had to overtake Matt Payne to secure third.
“The first stop was kind of OK because you just do it to tyres (stop refuelling when the tyre change has been completed).
“But in the last stop Dutto [team manager Mark Dutton] sort of gave me a countdown which was six seconds [worth of fuel] and I knew I was sitting there for a lot longer than six seconds.
“I think it was going to be pretty tight with Matt anyway, but we lost a bit of time with that today so to try and win tomorrow we need to be better in that department.
“I’m sure we’ll all look at that tonight, so a few things to improve on.”
Feeney affirmed that his misfortune was not a new story in the Supercars pit lane amid ongoing work to make the refuelling rates more consistent.
Triple Eight is known to have chased a similar problem with Will Brown’s car on race morning at Bathurst.
“We are working very hard at it, the team is doing a fantastic job of that. I can’t speak for everyone, but it seems very up and down and we don’t really know why,” Feeney said.
“I think a few people have that, some races it’s quite good. Today it wasn’t, so for us we need to understand why it’s up and down because we’re not really too sure at the moment.”
Feeney today trimmed teammate Brown’s championship lead from 204 points to 171, as the latter started 11th and finished seventh after a crash in qualifying.
Asked of the team dynamic, Feeney said: “I don’t want anything to go wrong like that, I just want to try and win races on merit and win a championship on merit.
“For me I just said, I’ve got to try and win races and get podiums in these next four because I’ve got to be able to capitalise if something was to go wrong.
“Unfortunately, Will made a mistake in qualifying today. Luckily, we were far enough up to get a couple of points but for me I’m not really worried on the championship.
“In a few of my moves I’m taking a bit of risk now on that, I’m just trying to get some trophies for the next few and go to Adelaide with a shot.”
