The arrival of 25-year-old Brown at the team as a replacement for relative veteran Shane van Gisbergen makes for two youngsters the garage who, notwithstanding multiple race wins for each in 2023 (including the Sandown 500 for Feeney), have higher ambitions in the sport.
Van Gisbergen, by way of contrast, was already a Bathurst 1000 winner and a two-time champion by the time Feeney, who is still only 21 years old now, started his rookie season.
Whincup, similarly, was only in the early days of his career when he arrived at Triple Eight Racing Engineering as Craig Lowndes’ new team-mate in 2006.
Now Team Principal, he is after a “healthy rivalry” between Triple Eight’s 2024 drivers, but admitted a potential for flashpoints.
“We’ve always had the luxury of drivers being at different stages of their careers,” said Whincup.
“There was a good almost eight years between Craig and myself, and there was another eight years between myself and SVG, and then I think it was more than that between SVG and Broc.
“But now, we’ve got two drivers very similar age, and similar skill level and at a similar stage of their careers.
“So, my job is to make sure we don’t have a Lewis Hamilton-Fernando Alonso scenario back at McLaren which happened in 2007 where they both just ran into each other and Ferrari ended up winning championships.
“That’s going to be my biggest task this year, to make sure that there’s a healthy rivalry between the two.”
Van Gisbergen’s move to the United States and a career in NASCAR also leaves Triple Eight in a position which has been foreign for almost a decade.
“We go into the year without a driver that’s won at least one championship,” noted Whincup.
“In my opinion, I feel like we’ve got the youngest and most exciting driver line-up that we’ve seen in a long time.
“I’m a fan of both guys, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they go this weekend and beyond.
“But, I certainly wouldn’t have signed Will, and we wouldn’t keep committing to Broc if we didn’t think they were the real deal and good enough to do the job.”
Practice 1 at the Thrifty Bathurst 500 starts at 12:20 local time/AEDT.
Discussion about this post