Triple Eight Race Engineering Team Principal Jamie Whincup says that the team is more confident having made ground on Championship leaders Erebus Motorsport in Darwin.

The Banyo-based squad posted a Broc Feeney-led one-two in Sunday’s Race 14 as Erebus experienced what points leader Brodie Kostecki described as ‘probably our worst weekend this year’, with neither Coca-Cola Camaro drivers making the podium across Darwin’s three races.

While there is no official ‘round winner’, Feeney and Shane van Gisbergen collected the most points from the weekend, as Kostecki’s 109-point lead was reduced to 59, albeit to Erebus team-mate Will Brown.

Feeney and Shane van Gisbergen, second and third in the championship on 1073 and 1054 points respectively, are now both less than a single race win (150 points) behind Kostecki’s 1164.

The Red Bull Ampol Racing squad saw tangible benefits in its performance at Darwin having carried out its first in-season test of its Gen3 Camaros at Queensland Raceway in the lead up to the Indigenous Supercars round.

“We certainly made a gain,” Whincup told Speedcafe.

“We don’t get many test days – we get a couple – and we used one of those up for this weekend trying to bridge the gap to the Erebus team, who have definitely been the standout at the start of the year.

“We’ve found some gains. Of course, we’re going to keep working on it up, keep improving our side of things. Definitely got some coverage on data point this weekend that we’re slightly better, and we’ll keep chipping away.”

While Southern-based teams including Walkinshaw Andretti United and Tickford Racing had their scheduled pre-Darwin tests at Winton washed out, several Queensland stationed teams in addition to Triple Eight benefitted from testing.

That included Matt Stone Racing, which saw Jack Le Brocq cap off the team’s first pole position with its maiden race victory in the #34 Truck Assist Camaro, as well as Dick Johnson Racing, which saw Will Davison drive the #17 Shell V-Power Racing Team Mustang to a podium in Race 13.

The Supercars field next head to Townsville on July 7-9, where the ‘500’ format sees two 250km races around the Reid Park street circuit. Van Gisbergen won both races in 2022 in the Gen2 ZB Holden Commodore.